
Class /"* ^"7 ^ 

CopyrightN^ ^_ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



EARLY MACKINAC 



AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH 



"By MEADE C WILLIAMS 



NAME— INDIAN LEGENDS— INDIAN CHARACTER- 
FRENCH, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FLAGS— OLD 
FORT— MILITARY HISTORY AND WAR OF J8I2- 
FUR TRADE-EARLY VILLAGE LIFE— CHRISTIAN 
MISSIONS AND CHURCHES-NATURAL ATTRAC 
TIONS— ANTIQUITIES 



FOURTH EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED 



Buschart Bros, 'Print 

St, Louis 

1902 



■ M/Lf/V7^. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
-CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Receiver* 

JUN 22 1903 

Copvtign+ Entry 
CLAS^ St XXc. No 

COPY a. 



COPYRIGHT, 1897, 1901, 1903, 
BY MEADE C. WILUAMS. 



3 



/s'^n 



TO ALL THOSE 
WHO HAVING ONCE KNOWN 

THE ISLAND OF THE STRAITS 

STILL REMEMBER ITS CHARM, 

AND REMAIN U^DER THE POWER OF ITS SPELL, 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. 



PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION. 

This book was first issued in 1897. My thirteen summers 
on Mackinac Island at that date have increased to eighteen. I 
have felt moved by my long acquaintance with the island, and 
my interest in it, to furnish in written form some of its history. 

The book now enters its fourth edition. It is greatly en- 
larged, and I trust improved, since its first appearance. 

While it is believed this portrayal in its historical portion 
may have interest for the general reader, it at the same time 
carries a local coloring which may more particularly appeal 
to those who know the place and who visit its shores. As 
th'C charm of the locality is due, in no small degree, to the 
halo of antiquity which hangs over it, I have felt warranted 
in giving special (though not exclusive) attention to early 
Mackinac, 

The work embodies the result of no little research and 
investigation. As the reader will perceive, I am much in- 
debted to the various writings of Henry R, Schoolcraft who 
dwelt for twenty years in the upper lake region, and who for 
eight years of this time was a resident of the island. I also 
express my obligations to the valuable series of "Collections 
and Researches," a work carried on by the Michigan Pioneer 
and Historical Society. These collections at present number 
thirty-two volumes. The use they make of the important 
"Haldimand Papers," of Canada, brings to hand much of the 
early history of the Straits and the island fort. 
St. Louis, Mo., June 1903. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Preface ^ 

CHAPTER I. 
The Island's name— Its etymology— Its sacredness in the Indian's mind 
—Indian legends— Poetic vein in Indian nomenclature — The pass- 
ing of the Indian— Difference between early and modern types 11 

CHAPTER II. 
Early settling under the French flag — Pioneer military post on north- 
ern mainland— La Hontan's visit — Removal to Detroit and return — 
Post established on southern mainland— English sway— Discontent 
of the Indians — Ball game and massacre— Alexander Henry — Wa- 

watam — Skull Cave — Henry's book of Travels 23 

CHAPTER III. 
Removal to the island proposed— Transfer effected— Major Sinclair- 
Captain Robertson (Robinson)— Rum— Captain Scott— Building the 

fort— Slowly completed— Its ancient style 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
American Independence achieved— England's delay in surrendering 
Mackinac— A second treaty required to secure American occupa- 
tion—Greenville treaty with the Indians — Fur trade— Mackinac in 
1810 as described by Washington Irving— Another early description 44 
CHAPTER V. 
War of 1812 opens— "British Landing''— Fort Mackinac captured by the 
British— Of great importance to British interests— Official reports- 
Building of Fort Holmes (Fort George) 56 

CHAPTER VI. 
American expedition to recover Mackinac— Effects entrance at "Brit- 
ish Landing"— The battle— Major Holmes killed— American forces 
withdraw— Destroy British supplies in Georgian Bay— Blockade 
effected— Blockade raised— Mackinac again ceded to United States 
in 1815 Old cannon— British remove to Drummond Island 64 

CHAPTER VII. 
Strained relations between Drnmmond Island and Mackinac — Indian 
mischief-makers— Heated Correspondence— The British Command- 
ant's disappointment— Drummond Island becomes American terri- 
tory—Early officers at Fort Mackinac— The Fort abandoned and 
transferred to State of Michigan— Offer of re-cession 77 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTKR VIII. 

PAGE. 

The Fur trade— The Hudson's Bay Co.— The Northwest Co.— Michili- 
mackinac an early depot for furs— John Jacob Astor an operator- 
Organizes the American Fur Co.— Mackinac Island as headquarters 

—Interesting relics 85 

CHAPTER IX. 

Summer on the Island in the early days— Indian and voyageur resort- 
ers— Canoes and Canoe voyaging— Boat Songs— Descriptions by 

Col. McKenney, Mrs. Jameson and H. H. Bancroft 98 

CHAPTER X. 

An early incident on the Island famous in medical annals— Alexis St. 
Martin — Dr. Wm. Beaumont— Beaumont's book— Tribute by Medi- 
cal Societies of Michigan — Mackinac Society in early times — Mod- 
ern Mackinac — An early prediction realized 107 

CHAPTER XI. 

Early citizens of the island— Ramsey Crooks as connected with the 
fur trade — Robert Stuart, resident partner in the Astor Fur Co.— 
Henry R. Schoolcraft, government agent, scientist and explorer— 

His literary works and character 116 

CHAPTER XII. 

Jesuit missions— Marquette— Church of St. Ann at Old Mackinaw, and 
on the island- Trinity Church— Congregational Church— Early 
Mission School and Old Mission Church— Story of Chuska— Old 
Mission Church restored 125 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Exceeding beauty of the island — Woods — Vegetation— Water views- 
Curiosities in stone— Arch Rock— Sugar I^oaf— Lover's Leap — Rob- 
inson's Folly and its legends 139 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The island's celebrity as a place of resort— Early-day visitors— Books 
of description — Countess Ossoli (Margaret Fuller) — A New York 
doctor's visit in 1835— Captain Marryatt— Mrs. Jameson— Miss Har- 
riet Martineau— Tribute in verse 151 

APPENDIX. 
Pronunciation of island name- White-fish of the upper lakes— Trav- 
eler's approach to old Mackinaw— Island's water-course in early 
days— Description by a participant in capture of the fort in 1812- 



British loss of fur-trade— Drummond Island in 1830— Passing of 
the beaver — The 'voyageurs • 



169 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGK, 

Bird's eye view of Mackinac Island 

Map of Mackinac Island 

Ottawa Canoe 16 

Indian Wigwam 20 

The Grififin— first sail vessel on the Western Lakes 23 

La Hontan's Sketch, 1688 24 

Old Fort Michilimackinac— on South side of the Straits 26 

Alexander Henry 31 

The present Fort Mackinac 43 

The Walk- in-the-water— first steam boat on the upper Lakes 54 

The Perry Cannon 74- 

Officers Quarters in the Fort 82 

O le of the Old Block Houses 85 

The Rival Traders 90 

A view of Mackinac in 1820... , 93 

American Fur Co. Old Desk 95 

American Fur Co. Old Scales 96 

Mackinac Beach in early days 98 

Voyageurs Tracking Canoes up a Rapid 101 

Dr. Wm. Beaumont 110 

The Vista Path 114 

Henry R. Schoolcraft..., 121 

Rev. Wm. M. Ferry 133 

Mrs. Ferry 133 

Old Mission Church 137 

In the Woods 140 

Sugar Loaf 143 

Lover's Leap 144 

Arch Rock 145 

Robinson's Folly 149 

Tanglewood 155 

One of the Drives 158 

The Old Agency 159 



BOOKS CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION 

OF THIS WORK; 

Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections. 

Wisconsin Historical Collections. 

Hennepin's Narrative, Edited by Shea. 

Baron L,a Hontan's New Voyages to North America. 

Charlevoix' Account of Voyage to Canada. 

Alexander Henry's Travels. 

Capt. Jonathan Carver's Travels Through the Canadas. 

Heriot's Travels Through the Canadas. 

Isaac Weld's Travels Through the States of North America and Provinces 

of Canada. 
Schoolcraft's Works. 
Drake's Indians of the North-west. 
Catlin's North American Indians. 
Parkman's Works. 

Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages, with Account of the Fur Trade. 
Beckles Willson's The Great Company. 
H. H. Robinson's The Great Fur l,and. 
Washington Irving' s Astoria. 
Herbert H. Bancroft's The North-west Coast, in his History of the Pacific 

States. 

Henry Adams' History of the United States. 

Rogers' Concise Account of North America. 

John Adams' Works. 

Whitelock's Wfe of Jay. 

American State Papers. 

Winsor's The Mississippi Basin. 

McAfee's History of the L,ate War in the Western Country. 

Chas. J. Ingersoll's Sketch of the Second War. 

Davison's Sketches of War of 1812. 

Robert Christie's War of 1812. 

Lossing's Field-book of War of 1812. 

Holmes' American Annals. 

Palmer's Historical Register. 

Kingsford's History of Canada. 

Boudinot's Canada. 

Robert's History of Canada. 

Hinsdale's Old North-west. 

Moore's The North-west under Three Flags. 

Tuttle's History of Michigan. 

Sheldon's Early History of Michigan. 

McKenney's Tour to the Lakes. 

Colton's Tour of the American Lakes. 



Life on the Lakes, or a Trip to the Pictured Rocks. Anonymous^ 

Disturnell, A Trip Through the Lakes of North America. 

Harriet Martineau's Society in America. 

Mrs. Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles. 

Capt. Maryatt's Diary in America. 

Margaret Fuller's Summer on the Lakes. 

Strickland's Old Mackinaw. 

Van Fleet's Old and New Mackinaw. 

Bailey's Mackinac, Formerly Michilimackinac. 

Kelton's, The Annals of Fort Mackinac. 

Cook's Old Fort Drunimond. 

Dr. Wm. Beaumont's FJxperiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice. 

Dr. Drake's Treatise on the Principal Diseases of North America. 

Gurdon Hubbard's Autobiography. 

Mrs. John Kenzie's Wau-Bun, the "Early Day" in the North-west. 

Life of Rev. Jedediah Morse, D. D. 

Rev. John H. Pitezel's Light and Shadows of Missionary Life. 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



CHAPTER 1. 

Michilimackinac was the old-time name, not 
for our beautiful island alone, but for all the 
country round about us, north to Lake Superior and 
west to the head of Green Bay. It was the island 
only that was first thus called. The word grew 
out of it, and small bit of land though it is, it 
threw its name over a vast territory. 

The name has been variously spelled. In old 
histories, reports, and other documents, I have 
found Mishlimakina, Missilimakinac, Mishilmaki, 
Michilimachina, Michilimaqina, Missilimakina, Mi- 
chiliakimawk; while in one standard history, 
when this region is spoken of, it invariably ap- 
pears as Michilimakinaw. * In its abbreviated form 
it has been written Mackinack, Macina, Maquina, 
Mackana, Mackinac, Mackinaw. In all the earlier 
periods following the settlement of the island by 
the whites, in books of travel and of history, and 
in mercantile records, Mackinac and Mackinaw 
were used interchangeably, though the form 
Mackinaze/ was most commonly adopted. Also in 
many of the early maps and atlases it is so given. 
Steamboat companies doing business on the island 
generally advertised their boats as of the "Mack- 
inaw Line." Business firms so wrote the word — at 

*Henry Adams' "History of the United States." 11 



12 EARLY MACKINAC. 

least as frequently as the other form. So this was 
quite general during all that time, except that the 
official name of the military post held to the 
termination "ac." But since the railroad compan- 
ies built their modern terminal town across the 
straits and called it Mackinaw City, for the sake 
of convenience in distinguishing, the name of the 
island is now uniformly written Mackinac. In 
pronunciation, however, without attempting to 
settle the question by the laws of orthoepy, it may 
be remarked that it is considered very incorrect 
to sound the final c\ and that to the ears of resi- 
dents, and old habitues and lovers of the island, it 
is almost distressful and irritating to hear it called 
anything other than Mackinaze'. The pronuncia- 
tion which has prevailed in the locality and 
throughout the surrounding region for genera- 
tions past has become the law of usage, and should 
determine the question. It is said that among the 
early residents of the island there was but one 
person who ever called it Mackina^y^, and he was 
regarded, in his day, "as an eccentric." A com- 
promise may perhaps be allowed, by taking the 
name as if it boi-e the termination ah, and giving 
it a sound between the flat and the very broad. 
Julian Ralph, a noted American traveler and des- 
criptive writer, has referred to the subject, and 
says the confusion is due to the French manner 
of "gallicizing" the words of any language they 
touch, so that all through our West, where they 
had early settlements, they thus "spelled words 
one way and pronounced them another, in a style 
peculiar to their own language, and maddening to 



STUDY OP THE NAME. 13 

the blunt and practical Anglo Saxon mind. '' And 
he charges us to remember that the name is always 
. Mackinaze^, no matter how it is spelled. Another 
traveler visiting the island in 1830, and writing 
about it', after first giving its name in full as 
Michilimackinack, says that in conformity with 
popular usage, ' 'we will henceforth say Mackinaw. ' ' 
Col. Wm. M. Ferry, of Park City, Utah, who lived 
on the island as a boy from 1824 to 1834, and who 
has a wide intelligence concerning its early local 
history, tells me the Canadian Frenchmen 
sounded it as Mack-ee-naw, and from that it came 
into common use. The word is further familiar 
to us from what, in our summer wear, is called the 
** Mackinaw hat." And the "Mackinaw boat," as 
descriptive of a certain build of sailing craft com- 
mon long ago in these straits, is a term still writ- 
ten as of yore.* 

The origin and signification of the word is in 
some obscurity. All agree that the first part of it, 
"Michi," means great. It is preserved in the name 
of the State, Michigan, and in the name of the 
lake, Lake Michigan — meaning great waters. The 
French took it up, spelling it Missi; hence the name 
of the river Mississippi — great river, the father 
of waters. Concerning the remainder of the name 
which follows Michi, we are not so sure. The com- 
mon view is that the form of the island, high- 
backed in the center, as it rises above the waters, 
and handsomely crowning the whole, suggested to 
the Indian fancy the figure of a turtle. Hence 
that it became known as the land of the Great 
Turtle. 

*Appendix A. 



14 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Heriot, an English traveler in North America, 
who published his "Travels through the Canadas" 
in 1807, touched at Mackinac and reports as the 
origin of the name that the island had been given, 
as their special abode, to an order of spirits called 
Imakinakos, and that "from these aerial pos- 
sessors it had received the appellation of Michi- 
limackinac.'' 

Schoolcraft, who is the best authority on all 
questions pertaining to the Indian language, as 
well as to the customs and characteristics of that 
race, says that the original name of the island was 
Mishi-min-auk-in-ong, and that it means the place 
of the great dancing spirits— these spirits being of 
the more inferior and diminutive order, instead of 
belonging to the Indian collection of gods; a kind 
oi pukwees, or fairies, or sprites, rather than 
Manitous. 

At the time of his first visit to the island in 
1820, Schoolcraft was inclined to the common view 
which connected the name with the turtle. But 
later, after he had lived many years among the 
Indians, and had made a study of their language 
and their modes of thought, he preferred the 
other explanation. The transition from the In- 
dian Mishi-min-auk-in-ong to the French. Michili- 
mackinac he thus explains: The French used 
ch for sh, interchanged n for /, and modified the 
syllables atik and ong respectively into ack. Per- 
haps the ack, or ac as we now have it, is but a 
suggestion of the nasal sound they would give to 
the final syllable ong, in the Indian word. A fur- 
ther hint may be furnished in the fact that the 



STUDY OF THE NAME. 15 

French form of the name, as we find it in old 
historical records and other documents, so fre- 
quently bears the termination ina instead of ack. 
We have then, only to give the broad sound 
to the final a, to see how Mackinaze^ may have be- 
come a common pronunciation. A philological ex- 
planation, strictly scientific, is not claimed. Many 
local words, especially geographical terms, 
throughout all the upper lake regions of early set- 
tlement, show corruptions as they have passed 
from the Indian language first into the French of 
the early explorers and missionaries, then into the 
patois of the illiterate French Canadians, and 
then into a mongrel anglicized form.* 

Perhaps the different views as to the signifi- 
cation of the word — the great turtle, or the great 
spirits — can in a manner be combined. The turtle 
was held in great reverence by the Indians. In 
their mythology it was regarded as a symbol of 
the earth and addressed as mother. \ The fancied 

*Bois Blanc, the French name of the large island near Mackinac be- 
came Bob bHow, and then in popular speech drifted into Bob-i-low. Near 
the head. of lyake Michigan, is a small island (now a light-house spot), 
named by the French lie aux Galets, but which in local phraseology has 
become Skilli-ga-lee. And north of it, at the entrance to the Straits, and 
also marked by a light-house, is Wau-go-chance, which is often designated 
colloquially as Wau-go-shanks, sometimes as "Wabble-shanks," and by- 
some of the steamboat men, consulting brevity, "The Shanks." 

tAndrew Lang in his 'Myths, Ritual and Religious." (Vol. 1. p. 
182), mentions certain of the Indian tribes as holding the fancy that the 
earth grew out of the tortoise. One form that the legend took was that 
Atahenstic, a woman of the upper world, had been banished from the 
sky, and falling, dropped on the back of a turtle in the midst of the 
waters. The turtle consulted with the other aquatic animals and one of 
them, generally said to have been the musk-rat, fished up some soil, and 
fashioned the earth. Here the woman gave birth to twins and thus began 
the peopling of the globe. Thus in the crude fancy of the Western In- 
dians do we find a reflection or fragment of the ancient myth which once 
prevailed in the oriental mind that the world rested on the back of a 
turtle. 



16 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



physical resemblance of the island coald easily 
work in with their mythical idea of the turtle, 
apart from its having any etymological connec- 
tion. And thus whatever way the name is studied 
it becomes associated with some Indian concep- 
tion of spirit. All singular or striking forma- 
tions in the work of nature — objects that were of 
..an unusual kind, or very large and imposing, as 





'1 






W ''■''' 


A 


^ 




w^ 


<*^^^Si 


^ 




^■Z -r^-^-'SSi^S^M 






>^.^ 


#^^^- 




1 


, .. >- 


m-^- 


""*" •""^'s^siiismm^gm^^^^^m 


W" ' ''^' 


^: '' 


- 1 



OTTAWA CANOE. 



lofty rocks, overhanging cliffs mountains, lakes 
and such like — these poor untutored children 
looked upon as the habitations of spirits. Our is- 
land, therefore, physically so different from the 
other islands and the mainland about it, with its 
glens and crags, and its many remarkable and 
strange-looking stone formations, would easily be 
peopled for them with spectres and spirits. They 
regarded it as their sacred island — a sort of shrine — 



LEGENDARY. 17 

and a favorite haunt of their gods, and cherished 
for it feeling's akin to awe; and from the sur- 
rounding regions would bring their dead for burial 
in its soil. It seems to have been rather their 
place of resort and temporary sojourn than of 
permanent abode. 

There is something very fascinating in the 
fragments of early Indian fancies and traditions 
and legends which are associated with our island. 
It is interesting, too, to note how the legends and 
the m3'thology of the Indians and their dim re- 
ligious ideas so often took a poetic form. For in- 
stance, in their pagan and untutored minds they 
thought of the island as the favorite visiting 
place of Michibou, the great one of the waters, 
their Manitou of these lakes. That coming over 
the waters from the sunrise in the east, he would 
touch the beach at the foot of Arch Rock; that the 
large mass of stone which had fallen from the 
face of the cliff in the long ago, causing the arch 
above, was "Manitou's Landing Place;" that the 
-arch was his gateway through which, ascending 
the hill, he would proceed with stately step to 
"Sugar Loaf, " which in fancy they made to be his 
wigwam, or lodge — the cave on the west side, 
known to all to-day, being his doorway. Then 
again, the Sugar Loaf stone and others of that 
•conical, pyramidal shape — such as the one which 
stands in St. Ignace, and those in different parts of 
the northern peninsula, and yet others which 
formerly stood on this island — that these strange, 
uncanny-looking rock formations, by a modifica- 
tion of fancy, they would personify into great 



18 EARLY MACKINAC. 

giants or monsters who towered oyer them as 
sentinels to note whether they made due offerings 
and sacrifices to Manitou, their success in hunting 
and trapping being conditioned on this kind of re- 
ligious fidelity.* 

The Indians, so spontaneously recognizing the 
world of spirits, were fruitful in ideas and senti- 
ments of reverence. We are told there were no 
profane words in their vocabulary. Think of a 
people who did not know how to swear because 
they had no words for it. It .is said that the 
nearest they approached to cursing a man was to 
call him *'a bad dog."t So, too, in the nomencla- 
ture of wild uncouth looking objects of nature. 
While our white pioneers and prospecting miners 
and avant couriers of civilization in the West have 
so often attached to such objects the name of the 



*Schoolcraft noted a curious fact among the Chippewas— that they 
fancied the woods and shores and islands were inhabited by innumerable 
spirits who during the summer season were wakeful and quick to hear 
everything that was spoken, but during the winter existed only in a 
torpid state. The Indian story tellers and legend mongers were there- 
fore very free in amusing their listeners with fanciful and mysterious 
tales during the winter, as the spirits were then in a state of inactivity 
and could not hear. But their story telling was suspended the moment 
the piping of the frog announced that spring had opened. That he had 
endeavored, but in vain, to get any of them to relate 'this sort of im- 
aginary lore at any other time than in the winter. They would always 
evade his attempts by some easy or indifferent remark. 

t"I have made many inquiries into the state of their vocabulary, and 
do not, as yet, find any word which is more bitter or reproachful than 
wa/f/4:/a««ew^aj/i, which indicates simply bad dog. They have terms to 
indicate cheat, liar, thief, murderer, coward, fool, lazy man, drunkard, 
babbler. But I have never heard of an imprecation or oath. The genius 
of the language does not seem to favor the formation of terms to be used 
in oaths or profanity. It is the result of the observation of others as 
well as my own, to say, that an Indian cannot curse." Schoolcraft's 
" Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes,^' 



POETIC VEIN. 19 

devil, as "Devil's Lake," ''Devil's Slide," Devil's 
Half-acre," "Devil's Scuttle-hole," and such like, 
the Indians generally gave them some expressive 
and harmonious poetic name. On the island we 
have the ''Devil's Kitchen," but we may feel sure 
that was not of the Indian's naming. The writer 
of this sketch learned from an old resident who had 
passed the whole of an extremely long life on the 
island, that once, long ago, a shoemaker took up 
his abode in that cavern and did his cobbling and 
his cooking there. Possibly that gave rise to the 
name. 

In this habit of nomenclature which linked 
their ideas with the phenomena of physical nature, 
we see a beautiful though often rude and childish 
vein of poetry. Their name for the great cataract 
of Niagara was -'Thunder of the Waters," as that 
for the gentle falls now within the limits of the 
city of Minneapolis, was Minnehaha or "Laughing 
Waters." The familiar white lish of these regions 
was the "Deer of the Waters." To the horizon 
limit, when they looked out on the lake to where 
the thread-like line of blue water loses itself in the 
clouds and sky, they gave the name which signi- 
fied the "Far-off Sight of Water. " The name for 
General Wayne, who did so much to overthrow 
their power in- the West, was "Strong Wind;" 
while the American soldiers, from their use of the 
sabre and sword in battle, were known as the 
"Long Knives." Their conception of a fort, with 
its mounted cannon was "The high-fenced house 
of thunder," while the discharge was, 'Hhe arrow 
that flies out of the big gun." Their word to 



20 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



designate the Christian Sabbath, meant "Prayer 
Day.'' The month of February they called "The 
moon of crusted snow," as the snow could then 
bear up a man in the hunt, while the feet of the 
stag would break through. In the personal names 
given to individuals we often see a poetic associa- 
tion with the objects of nature most familiar to 
their minds. A little son of Mr. Schoolcraft, 
then government agent at the Sault, was admir- 




INDIAN WIGWAM. 

ingly called by the Chippewas "Penaci," or "The 
Bird;" while the name of Mrs. Schoolcraft's 
mother, a full-blood Indian woman, was a many- 
syllabled word, which meant "Woman of the 
Green Valley." The English authoress, Mrs. 
Jameson, when visiting the Sault, after "shooting 
the rapids" with the Indian guides (the first Eu- 
ropean woman who had ever ventured on the ex- 
ploit) was re-named "The Woman of the Bright 
Foam." I find the names of five Indian chiefs, 



INDIAN MENTALITY. 21 

each as translated giving quite a poetic sense: 
The Sun's Course in a Cloudless Sky, Bursts of 
Thunder at a Distance, The Sound of Waves Break- 
ing on the Rocks, The Returning Clouds, The Bird 
in Eternal Flight.* 

As their whole life and range of observation 
was constantly associated with tempests, forests, 
waters, skies, and all the various phenomena of 
physical nature, this gave shape to their concep- 
tions and their questionings. It has always seemed 
very significant that when John Eliot, the pioneer 
missionary to the Indians in New England two 
hundred and fifty years ago, began his instruc- 
tions among them, he was met at once by their 
eager and long pent-up questions of wonder: 
"What makes the sea ebb and flow?" "What 
makes the wind blow?" "What makes the thun- 
der?" 

Parkman represents the Jesuit missionaries 
in Canada, two centuries since, as testifying 
that the Indians had a more acute intellect 
than the peasantry in France. At his best, 
however, the red man was but the ' 'child of the 
forest," and in the presence of the pale faces was 
not destined to endure. They are a doomed and a 
passing race — * 'meeting the fate they cannot 
shun." Many reasons or causes might be as- 
signed for this. One reason is that which was 
given by a very thoughtful Indian in a speech on 
a certain occasion long ago, before a company of 

*In contrast, we note in their modern reservation and semi-civilized 
life a degeneracy in the style of names they are fond of bearing-, such as 
Sitting Bull, Thunder Bull, Crazy Snake, Wolf-in-the-middle, Ground 
Nose, Creeping Bear, Man-afraid-of-his-horses, Rain-in-the-face, etc. 



22 EARLY MACKINAC. 

government agents here on the island beach. Said 
he, very reflectively : *'The white man no sooner 
came than he thought of preparing the v^ay for his 
posterity; the red man never thought of that." In 
this profound observation is embodied one of the 
latest deductions in social philosophy. 

Of course, in thus speaking of the Indians, 
reference is had to manifestations of their mental 
character as seen in the earlier days, and not to 
Indian life and character at present, us seen in the 
Western reservations. By contact with the whites, 
it has been said, they lost their originality.* 

*Catlin, who ranks next to Schoolcraft in his study of the Indians, 
in an extensive classification of qualities, contrasts their original 
character in their "primitive and disabused state," with their secondary 
character after "being beaten into a sort of civilization." From being 
handsome, he says, they had become ugly; from free, enslaved; from 
affable, reserved; from bold, timid; from warlike, peaceable; from proud, 
humble; from independent, dependent; from healthy, sickly; from sober, 
drunken; from increasing, decreasing; from landholders, beggars." 

"In their own woods they are a noble race; brought near to us, a 
degraded and stupid race."— Mrs Jameson, 

"The imprisoned lion in the showman's cage differs not more widely 
from the lord of the desert, than the beggarly frequenter of frontier gar- 
risons and dram-shops differs from the proud denizens of the woods. It 
is in his native wilds alone that the Indian must be seen and studied." 
— Parkman in '^'' History of the Conspiracy of PontiacV 

"To savages the virtues of civilization are no less destructive than 
its vices."— Charles Moore in The §Hprih West under Three Flags, 




run griffin— first sail vksskl on thk lakes. 



Built by LaSalle, on Niagara River a few miles above the Falls, iu 1678-79, 
and named in allusion to the arms of his friend Count de Fronteuac, 
in which griffins figured. Set sail August 7. 1679— La Salle her com- 
mander and Hennepin the journalist of the expedition. This was the 
first voyage ever made by Europeans on these inland seas. Arrived in 
the Straits August 27th, at what is now St. Ignace of the northern main- 
land, four miles across from the Island of Mackinac. Anchored in a 
bay overlooked by two rocky bluffs, known in Indian tradition as the 
He and She Rabbit. The former also known as Sitting Rabbit, or Rab- 
bit's Back. The Indians were greatly amazed to see a ship in their 
country, and to hear the sound of its cannon. Hennepin says, "In this 
bay where the Griffin was riding we looked with pleasure at this large, 
well-equipped vessel amid a hundred or a hundred and twenty bark 
canoes coming and going from taking white fish which these Indians 
catch with nets." Leaving the Straits the party set out on Lake Michi- 
gan and sailed as far west and south as Green Bay. Here La Salle s^nt 
back the Griffin, loaded with furs and bound for Niagara. The vessel 
WaS lost, with all on board— it is thought in the northern part of Lake 
Michigan and thus perhaps not far from the Mackinac region. 



CHAPTER 11. 

The annals of our island since its discovery 
and occupation by the whites carry us back to an 
early day. Explorers from France and settlers 
from Canada were here two hundred and fifty 
years ago. Traces of French and Indian mixture 
are everywhere seen. Indian wars and massacres 
have reddened these shores. Stories of English 
power victorious over French, in far back colonial 
times, have a part in the history of this region. 
In a later day the island had its stirring incidents 
in our own war with Great Britain, in 1812. Here 
was the headquarters of the Mackinaw Fur Company 
and the Southwest Fur Company, and afterwards 
of the powerful American Fur Company, of- which 
John Jacob Astor was the chief proprietor, and 
which made our island for the time the largest seat 
of commerce in the western country. * Christianity, 
too, has had here its early enterprises, at the 
hands first of the French Jesuit missionaries of the 
17th Century, and afterwards of Protestantism. 

In regard to early military annals, history 
points to the fact that with the exception of the 
brief abandonment by the French forces from about 
1701 to 1714, this region of the straits had been a 
seat of continuous military occupation from the 

*Detroit, Vincennes, St. Louis, Lake Winnipeg. Lake of the Woods, 
and other far distant points were but dependencies of Michilimackinac, 
as the metropolis of the Indian trade. 

23 



24 EARLY MACKINAC. 

last quarter of the 17th century down to 1895, when 
to the surprise and regret of all who knew the 
island's history, the United States Government 
abolished the post. Three different flags have 
floated over a fort in these Straits of Mackinaw 
during this long period past. These have been in 
the order of French, English and American. The 
French were the pioneers. They established Fort 
Michilimackinac, over where now the town of St. 
Ignace stands, four miles across on the northern 
peninsula. This was about two hundred and 
twenty-five years ago. 

Baron La Hontan, who had come from France 
to Canada at an early age and afterwards became 
Lord Lieutenant of a French Colony in Newfound- 
land, visited our Mackinac neighborhood in 1688. 
In a publication of his travels in North America he 
gives three letters from the Michilimakinac settle- 
ment of that day.* As accompanying his picture 
on the adjoining page he thus writes: "You can 
scarce believe what vast sholes of white fish are 
catched about the middle of the channel, between 
the continent and the isle of Missilimakinac. The 
Outaouas\ and the Hurons could never subsist 
here, without that fishery; for they are obliged to 
travel about twenty leagues in the woods before 
they can kill any harts or elks, and it would be an 
infinite fatigue to carry their carcasses so far over 
land. This sort of white fish, in my opinion, is the 
only one in all these lakes that can be called good; 

*The book was first published in French, 1705. Afterwards an en- 
larged edition appeared in English form, 1735. 
tOttawas. 



m 

3*? O 

as t3 " 



O) 



Cf CO 



1^ 

to 



o 

> 

= ^£ 

rt rr -i^^ 
-^ ■ "^ 

■si 

H:? On 
5*0 00 
"^ — CO 

«;? • 

» B 

^ »i 
11 = 



B B 







LA hontan's letter. 25 

and indeed it goes oeyond all other sorts of river 
fish. Above all, it has one singular property, 
namely, that all sorts of sauces spoil it, so that it 
is always eat either boiled or broiled, without any 
manner of seasoning. * 

"In the channel I now speak of, the currents 
are so strong that they sometimes suck in the nets, 
though they are two or three leagues off. In some 
seasons it so falls out that the currents run three 
days eastward, two days to the west, one to the 
south, and four northward; sometimes more and 
sometimes less. The cause of this diversity of 
currents could never be fathomed, for in a calm 
they will run, in the space of one day, to all the 
points of the compass, i. e., sometimes in one way, 
sometimes another, without any limitation of time; 
so that the decision of the matter must be left to 
the disciple of Copernicus. 

'Here the savage catch trouts as big as one's 
thigh; with a sort of fishing-hook made in the 
form of an awl, an^ made fast to a piece of brass 
wire, which is joined to the line that reaches to the 
bottom of the lake. This sort of fishery is carried 
on not only with hooks, but with nets, and that in 
winter as well as in summer. 

"The Outaouas and the Huron s have very 
pleasant fields, in which they sow Indian corn, 
pease and beans, besides a sort of citruls and 
melons. Sometimes these savages sell their corn 
very dear, especially when the beaver hunting 
happens not to take well; upon which occasion 
they make sufficient reprisals upon us for the ex- 
travagant price of our commodities. " 

*Appendix B. 



26 EARLY MACKINAC. 

For a short interval the French Government, 
under the instigation of the j^ost Commander, 
Cadillac, withdrew the garrison (as already men- 
tioned) and abandoned this region as a military 
seat in favor of the new settlement at Detroit. 
That was about the opening of the 18th century. But 
this vacating was soon seen to be bad policy, and 
in 1714 the fort was re-established. When, how- 
ever, the restored fort becomes known again in 
histor}^ it is found located on the Southern Penin- 
sula, across the Straits, where now stands the 
railroad town, Mackinaw City. Whether on the 
return from Detroit the military at once located the 
fort there, or first resumed the old site at St. 
Ignace, and removed to the other Peninsula at some 
later period, is not definitely known. At any rate 
it was the same military occupation, and the same 
Fort Michilimackinac, irrespective of the time of 
change in the site. It stood about half a mile from 
the present Light House, and southwesterly from 
the railroad station; and was so close to the water's 
edge that when the wind was in the west the waves 
would often break into the stockade. Its site is 
plainly visible -to-day, and visitors still find relics 
in the sand. * 

After the conquest of Canada by the English, 
in the deciding battle of Quebec on the heights of 
Abraham in 1759, all this country around came un- 
der the English flag. The Indians, however, liked 
better the French dominion and their personal re- 
lations with the French people than they did the 
English sway and English associations, and they 
did not take kindly to the transfer. One reason 

^Appendix C. 



? t^ 




PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY. 27 

for this preference is said to have been that the 
French were accustomed to pay respect to all the 
Indians' religious or superstitious observances, 
whereas an Englishman or an American was apt, 
either to take no pains to conceal his contempt for 
their superstitions or to speak out bluntly against 
them. To this can be added the well known fact of 
the greater readiness of the French to intermarry 
and domesticate with the Indian.* 

This strong feeling of discontent under the 
change of empire, on the part of the Indians, was 
fanned and skillfully directed by that great leader 
and diplomate, Pontiac;t and "The Conspiracy of 
Pontiac" is the well-known title of one of Park- 
man's series of North American history. This 
cons^^iracy was no less than a deep and compre- 
hensive scheme, matured by this most crafty 
savage chief, for a general Indian rising, in which 
all English forts, from the south to the upper 
lakes, were to be attacked simultaneously, and the 
English rule forever destroyed. The Indians would 
vauntingly say, "You have conquered the French, 
but you have not conquered us." Out of twelve 
forts, nine were taken, but not long held. 



* "When the French arrived at this place," said a ChiiJpewa Chief at 
a council once held at the Sault, "they came and kissed us. They called 
us children and we found them fathers. We lived like brothers in the 
same lodge.'' Schoolcraft , in an address before the Michigan Historical 
Society in 1830. 

t "In force of character, subtlety, eloquence and daring, Pontiac 
was perhaps the most brilliant man the Indians of North America have 
produced."— 'J. History of Canada," by Chas. G. D. Roberts. Schoolcraft 
rated him in the same way. Drake, in his "Indians of the Northwest,'* 
says of him: "His fame in his time was not confined to his own continent 
but the gazettes of Europe spread it also." 



28 EARLY MACKINAC. 

While this scheme was, of course, a failure in 
its larger features, the plot against the old post of 
Michiliniackinac across the water succeeded only 
too well. The strategy and horrors of that capture 
read like a tale of fiction. The story is old, but to 
repeat it in this sketch will not be amiss. It may 
be introduced under the title of 

AN HISTORIC BALL GAME. 

In 1763 a band of thirty -five English soldiers 
and their officers formed its garrison. Encamped 
in the woods not far off was a large number of In- 
dians. One morning in the month of June, Avith 
great show of friendliness, the Indians invited the 
soldiers to witness their match game of ball, j iist 
outside the stockade. The Chippewas were to play 
the Sacs.* Then, as now, ball playing had great 
fascination. And as this was the birthday of the 
King of England, and the men were in the celebra- 
ting mood, some indulgence was shown, discipline 
for a time relaxed, gates were left ajar and the 
soldiers and officers carelessly sauntered and look- 
ed on, enjoying the sport. In the course of play^ 
and as a part of the pre-concerted stratagem, the 
ball was so struck that it fell within the stockade 
line of the fort. As if pursuing it, the players 
came rushing to the gate. The soldiers, intent in 
watching the play, suspected nothing. The Indians 
now had an open way within, and instantly turned 
from ball-players into warriors, and a terrifying 
"whoop" was given. The squaws, as sharing in 
the plot, were standing near with tomahawks con- 
cealed under their blankets. These were seized, 

*Baggatiway was their kind of ball game. 



ALEXANDER HENRY. 29 

and then followed a most shocking massacre. The 
surprise of the fort and the success of the red men 
were complete. 

The details of this dreadful event are vivid- 
ly and harrowingly given by the English trader, 
Alexander Henry, sojourning at the time, with his 
goods within the stockade, and unfortunately a 
sharer in the dreadful scenes and experiences. The 
humble Henry may well be called the Father of 
History, like another Herodotus, as far as this 
episode is concerned. Excepting the very meagre 
report of the humiliating capture made by Captain 
Etherington, the officer in command, there seems 
to be nothing but the narrative of this English 
trader. His description of the fort, the purpose it 
had been serving, the movements of the Indians 
preceding the affair, as well as the minute descrip- 
tion of the stratagem and its success, and the terri- 
ble scenes enacted, is the chief source of informa- 
tion; and one can take up no history of this period 
and this locality without seeing how all writers are 
indebted to his plain and simple narrative. 

When the fort was captured by the savages, 
he himself was hidden for the first night out of 
their murderous reach, but was discovered the 
next day. Then followed a series of experiences 
and hair-breadth escapes and turns of fortune very 
remarkable, while all the time the most barbarous 
fate seemed impending, the suspense in which made 
his sensations, if possible, only the more distress- 
ful and torturing. It was not enough that his 
goods were confiscated and his very clothes strip- 
ped off his body, but his savage captors thirsted 



30 EARLY MACKINAC. 

for his blood. They said of him and their other 
prisoners, that they were being reserved to ' 'make 
English broth. " After four days of such horrors 
there came a turn which Henry says gave ' 'a new 
color to my lot. " During his residence at the post 
before the massacre, a certain Chippewa Indian 
named Wawatam, who used to come frequently to 
his house, had become very friendly and told him 
that the Great Spirit pointed him out as one to 
adopt as a brother, and to regard as one of his own 
family. Suddenly, on the fourth day of his cap- 
tivity, Wawatam appeared on the scene. Before a 
council of the chiefs he asked the release of his 
brother, the trader, at the same time laying down 
presents to buy off whatever claims any may have 
thought they had on the prisoner. Wawatam 's 
request, or demand was granted, and taking Mr. 
Henry by the hand he led him to his own lodge 
where he received the utmost kindness. 

A day or t^vo afterwards, fearing an attack of 
retaliation by the English, the whole body of 
Indians moved from the fort over to our island as 
a place of greater safety. They landed, three hun- 
dred and fifty fighting men. Wawatam was among 
them, with Henry in safe keeping. Several days 
had passed, when two large canoes from Montreal, 
with English goods aboard, were seized by the 
Indians. The invoice of goods contained among 
other things, a large stock of liquor, and soon mad 
drunkenness prevailed. The watchful and faithful 
Wawatam told Henry he feared he could not pro- 
tect him when the Indians were in liquor, and 
besides, as he frankly confessed, "he could not 



ALEXANDER HENRY. 



31 



himself resist the temptation of joining his com- 
rades in the debauch." He therefore took him up 
the hill and back in the woods, and hid him in a 
cave, where he was to remain hidden "until the 
liquor should be drank." After an uncomfortable 
and unrestful night, Henry discovered next morn- 




ALEXANDER HENRY. 

ing, to his horror, that he had been lying on a heap 
01 human bones and skulls. This charnel-house 
retreat is now the well-known "Skull Cave" of the 
Island, one of the regular stopping places of the 
tourists' carriages. 

But we cannot follow trader Henry's fortunes 
farther. In a relation between guest and prisoner, 



32 EARLY MACKINAC. 

and generally treated with respect, moving with 
the band from one place to another, following the 
occupation of a hunter, and taking up with Indian 
life and almost fascinated by it, he at length finds 
himself at the Sault, where soon an opportunity 
opened for his deliverance and his return home. 
Subsequently he made another trip to the country 
of the upper lakes and remained for a longer time. 
Of his good friend Wawatam, it is a sad tradition 
that he afterwards became blind and was accidental- 
lyburned in his lodge on the island at the Point, 
formerly know^n as Ottawa Point, in the village, 
then as Bid die's, and more recently as Anthony's 
Point. 

It may be that some have felt incredulous in 
respect to Henry's thrilling tale. But there is 
reason to think it entirely trustworthy. It is con- 
tained in a book which he wrote, entitled "Travels 
and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Terri- 
tories, between 1760 and 1776." It was first pub- 
lished in 1809, and is dedicated to Sir Joseph 
Banks, "Baronet of his Majesty's Privy Council 
and President of the Royal Society". It is a 
book of thrilling interest. It has long been 
out of print, and copies of it to-day are very rare 
and command a high price. Mr. Henry's residence 
in his latter years was at Montreal, and he was 
still living as late as 1811, an old man past eighty 
years of age, hale and cheerful looking. He bore 
a good name and an unquestioned reputation for 
veracity among those who knew him. I have 
already named him the Herodotus of this particular 
period of history. By another person, an enthu- 



ALEXANDER HENRY. 33 

siastic English visitor at Mackinac, Mrs, Jameson, 
in 1837, he was called also the Ulysses of these 
parts; and his book, she said, bore the relation to 
the Michilimackinac shores and waters which the 
Odyssey does to the shores of Sicily.* 

The chronological order in which early trav- 
elers and visitors, who have left any annals of 
their journeys, came to this region, may be stated 
as follows: Niccollet, in 1634; Marquette, 1671; 
LaSalle and Hennepin, 1679; LaHontan, 1688; 
Charlevoix, 1721; Alexander Henry, 1762; Capt. 
John Carver, 1766. 

*At the time of this lady's visit, copies of Henry's book, she tells us, 
were very scarce, and the booksellers had great difficulty in procuring 
her a copy. They became still scarcer in subsequent years. Very re- 
cently a new edition has been issued. 



CHAPTER III. 

The victory of the Indians over at the old fort 
on the Southern mainland was nothing beyond a 
shocking and atrocious massacre. It was utterly 
barren as regards any permanent results, and the 
status of supremacy was not changed. The stock- 
ade had not been destroyed, and British troops 
soon came and resumed possession. Subsequently, 
however, the question of transferring the military 
seat of the Michilimackinac region across the 
Straits to our island came up, and was duly con- 
sidered. Major Sinclair made a careful prelimi- 
nary examination. In a letter written in October, 
1779, he says: ''I employed three days from sun to 
sun in examining the Island of Mackinac, on which 
I found great quantities of excellent oak, elm, 
beech and maple, with a vein of the largest 
and finest cedar trees I ever saw. * * The 
soil is exceedingly fine, with abundance of lime- 
stone. * * The situation is respectable, and con- 
venient for a fort." He also mentions that he 
found on the island "a run of water, sufficient for 
a sawmill."* 

He submitted drawings and cuts of the island, 
and plans for fortification, to Gen. Haldimand, the 
officer in command of the department, and whose 
headquarters were at Quebec. The superiority of 
the island, as a strong position against Indian 
attacks, and Indian threats and insults, was pointed 

34 

♦Appendix D. 



CHANGE OF BASE. 35 

out; also its advantages in having one of the best 
harbors in the upper country, and as respects the 
fishing interests likewise. It is thought, too, 
that the transfer was somewhat connected, in the 
British mind, with the American war of the Revo- 
lution, w^hich was then in progress. Sinclair spoke 
of the ' 'liability of being attacked by the Rebels, " 
at the old fort, and that the place might "justly be 
looked upon as the object of a separate expedi- 
tion." As a precautionary measure, he made every 
trader take oath of allegiance to the king, and to 
hold in "detestation and abhorrence the present 
unnatural and horrid rebellion. " At any rate, the 
garrison did not feel safe in a mere stockade of 
timbers on the mainland. Gen. Haldimand ac- 
cordingly gave orders for the removal. The fol- 
lowing letter on the subject was w^ritten by him, 
April 16, 1780, to Major DePeyster, formerly in 
command of the old Mackinac fort, but who had 
been transferred, the year before, to the command 
at Detroit* 

"Sir — Having long thought it would be expedi- 
ent to remove the fort, etc., from its present 
situation to the Island of Michilimackinac, and 
being encouraged in this undertaking by advanta- 
ges enumerated by Lt. Gov. Sinclair, that must 
result from it, and the earnest desire of the traders. 



*Ma]or DePeyster was of American birth, and had served in the 
British army in various parts of this country, besides commanding at 
Mackinac, and afterwards at Detroit. He held a commission for 77 
years, and lived to the age of 96. He spent his latter years in Dumfries, 
Scotland, the early home of his wife. During his residence there, he 
and the poet Burns were great friends. Burns addressed one of his 
fugitive poems to DePeyster. 



36 EARLY MACKINAC. 

I have given directions that necessary preparations, 
by collecting materials, etc., be made with as much 
expedition as possible, as the strength of that post 
will admit of. I am sure it is unnecessary to 
recommend to you to furnish him every assistance 
he may require, and that Detroit can afford, in for- 
warding this work, farther than by giving you my 
sanction for the same, which I do in the fullest 
manner. " 

A government house and a few other buildings 
were at once erected on the site of the present 
village; the old block houses were built, and His 
Majesty's troops took possession on the 13th of 
July, 1780, Major Sinclair commanding, though 
the entire removal Avas only gradually effected. 

The Indians, as proprietors of the land, had 
been first consulted about this occupancy, and 
agreement and treaty terms were obtained. The 
consideration was £5,000. Two deeds were 
signed, with their mark, by four chiefs, in behalf 
of themselves and all the Chippewas. One was to 
be lodged with the Governor of Canada, and one to 
remain at the island post; while the chiefs engaged 
to preserve in their villages a belt of wampum 
seven feet long, to be a memorial of the trans- 
action. But it seems that after the work was 
under way and the post established, the Indians 
showed discontent, and threatened the troops; and 
so serious was the hostility manifested, that 
Sinclair sent in great haste to Detroit for cannon. 
The vessel was back in eight days, bringing the 
guns, and as soon as she touched on the harbor she 
fired a salute, and that "speaking out" by the 



ESTABLISHED ON THE ISLAND. 37 

cannon's month at once settled the question, and 
the poor Indians had no more to say. 

The old site being abandoned (since when it is 
often referred to as *'01d Mackinaw,") and the 
garrison removed, the families of the little settle- 
ment, could not do otherwise than follow the fort. 
Many of the houses w^ere taken down and trans- 
ported piecemeal across the straits, and set up 
again as new homes on the island. And hardly 
were the settlers thus re-established before they 
addressed a petition to the government, asking for 
remuneration to compensate' for the loss and ex- 
pense incurred, on the ground that their removal 
was in the interest of the State and the public wel- 
fare. What response was made to this petition I 
have found no record which tells. 

The first commandant of the island, Major 
Sinclair, was also knowm as Lieutenant Governor. 
It appears that he had been appointed inspector 
and superintendent of the English forts, and bore 
some general civic position as representative of 
the government, besides his military rank; also as 
having charge of Indian affairs. Hence he is fre- 
quently spoken of in the records as Gov. Sinclair, as 
w^ell as Major. It seems to have been on this ac- 
count, as an officer with a more embracing scope, 
rather than as of higher military rank, that he 
superseded Major DePeyster, in command at old 
Mackinac, in 1779. After the transfer he remain- 
ed two years in charge of the new post. Sinclair 
appears, from the style of his letters and reports, a 
more cultured and better educated man than some 
of his cotemporaries among the officers of that 



38 EARLY MACKINAC. 

period. But his services as a post commandant 
and general manager of affairs, seem to have been 
unsatisfactory, because of his lavish expenditures, 
and because of "abuses and neglects in different 
shapes, " as it was said. He was continually being 
cautioned from headquarters in regard to his 
financial transactions. For half a century and 
more, after he left the post, the inhabitants con- 
tinued to talk about his extravagance; and one of 
the stories long current on the island, was that he 
had paid at the rate of one dollar per stump for 
clearing a cedar swamp in the government fields 
at the west end of the village. It subsequently 
appears that, on his return to England, this reck- 
lessness in expenditure while on the island led to 
his imprisonment for debt. He speaks himself, in 
one of his letters, of being "liberated upon paying 
the Michilimakinac bills protested. " 

Major, or Governor, Sinclair was succeeded by 
Captain Daniel Robertson, who seems to have been 
in command from 1782 to 1787. This Robertson is 
also called Robinson, and is the one whose name 
will probably be always associated with the island, 
and a figure mark in the guide books and the 
traditionary stories — for when will "Robinson's 
Folly" cease to be visited and talked about? 

The official annals of that time show a great 
many of Captain Robinson's letters, written while 
he was commandant of the post. He seems to have 
been a rough-and-ready, energetic officer; not very 
elegant in his style of composition or his orthogra- 
phy, prosaic and practical, and perhaps not quite 
fulfilling the sentimental and romantic ideal which 



RUM. 39 

some of the legends and stories, connecting his 
name with the "Folly," would suggest. In one of 
his reports of this time, a very good plat is given, 
showing the contour of the Island and the location 
of the fort, and the harbor bearing the )iame, 
"Haldimand's Bay," named, presumably, in honor 
of the English commander of the province."^ In a 
letter of April, 1783, the Captain commends the 
climate of Mackinac as "preferable to any in 
Canada, and very healthy;" but he says "it is an 
expensive place, " He tells in 1784 of the wharf 
being broken to pieces by the ice, so that no kind 
of craft could be loaded or unloaded, but that he 
set men to work and got it in repair. He adds: 
"It was a very troublesome job." He wants to 
know, he says, in one of his letters, whether or not 
he is to "have any rum;" and again he says, he is 
at a loss to know how he is to act at this post 
without that liquor, and he is sorry he is * 'obliged 
to cringe and borrow rum from traders on account 
of Government." At another time he writes, "I 
have had no rum this season, and you know it is 
the Indian's God. " And yet again he pours forth 
his complaint: "Rum is very much wanted here 
for various purposes, particularly for Indians, and 
I have had only seven barrels this twelve month." 
However, it is but due to the Captain to say 
that, unfortunately, he was not alone in this 
opinion of the indispensableness of rum in the re- 
lations of the whites and the military with the 

*The name was evidently given up after the island changed its flag 
In the early days, subsequent, it was familiarly designated by the island 
people as "The Basin." 



40 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Indians. We find Major Sinclair, his predecessor, 
as commandant of the fort, writing to General 
Haldimand in 1781, as follows: *'The Indians can- 
not be deprived of nearly their usual quantity of 
rum, however destructive it is, without creating 
much discontent." There is a sad vein running 
through all this early history, made by rum; first 
as one of the government suj)plies to the Indians, 
and next as an article of traffic. The poor red 
men facetiously called it "The Enghsh Milk;" but 
their more serious name for it was the truer one, 
"Fire water."* 

Robertson, (Robinson) was in command from 
1782 to 1787. There are intimations of his having 
been disapproved at Gen. Haldimand 's head- 
quarters, and we are told that during those days 
of British occupancy, just as in the administration 
of affairs since that time in our own western out- 
posts, "abuses in the Indian department were 
common." Captain Scott was next put in com- 
mand, "sent in the room of Robertson," as the 

*H. M. Robinson in his interesting book, "The Great Fur I^and," des- 
criptive of the regions of the Hudson's Bay Company, says of the Indian's 
liquor, "It must be strong enough to be inflammable, for he always tests it 
by pouring a few drops in the fire." 

"The effects of ardent spirits in the lodge, are equal to the appearance 
of a grizzly bear amongst them." — Schoolcraft. 

"An Indian would barter away all his furs, nay even leave himself 
without a rag to cover his nakedness, in exchange for that vile unwhole- 
some stuff called English brandy."— Willson's, " The Great Company." 

"The Indians do not seem eager to obtain liquor so much for the 
pleasure of gratifying their palates as for the sake of intoxicaiion. When 
intoxicated they appear more like devils incarnate than human beings; 
they roar, they fight, they cut each other, and commit every sort of out- 
rage."— Weld's Travels through the States of North c4merica and the 'Provinces 
of Canada, 1795- '97. 



CAPTAIN SCOTT. 4t 

record reads. This change seems to have been for 
the great improvement of the service. An officer 
sent out from Montreal, on an inspection tour, thus 
reports concerning Scott: "I do not believe there 
is a better man in the world, or a more zealous 
good officer of his standing in the army. He has 
gained infinite credit during his command at Mack- 
inac, but, poor fellow his pocket has paid for it. 
Yet he has convinced the people there that it is 
possible for a commanding officer to be an honest 
and an honorable man. He will tell you wonderful 
stories of the Indian department in that quarter. '* 
Scott was followed in command of the post by 
Captain Doyle who remained in charge until its 
delivery to the United States. 

The fort was not built complete at once, but 
gradually took on its dimensions and its strength. 
In 1789, after an inspection by the Engineer's 
Department, the fortifications, as originally design- 
ed, were reported as being only in part executed, 
and that the work had been discontinued for some 
years, and that in the mean time a strong picket- 
ing had been erected around the unfinished works. 
And again, as late as 1792, the plans were reported 
as not yet finished; the officers' stone g^uarters were 
only about half completed; the walls were uj) the 
full height and the window frames in, but the roof 
and floors wanting. (Sharp criticism was made, 
too, by the officer then inspecting, on the whole 
design of the fort.) And yet again, in 1793, the 
commandant, Captain Doyle, writes concerning the 
' 'ruinous state of the fort, ' ' but says he purposed 
^'sending to the saw mill for planks, and would. 



42 EARLY MACKINAC. 

^ive the Barracks a thorough repair, having re- 
ceived orders from His Excellenc}', Maj. Gen. 
Clarke, to that purpose;" also asking for "an 
engineer and some artificers to render the misera- 
ble fortress in some degree tenable" 

Even after its transference to the United 
States it was only by slow degrees brought on to 
its better condition as a fortification. Heriot in 
his visit to the island in 1807 (already referred to) 
reports the fort as ^'consisting of four wooden 
block-houses, * * * the space between being filled 
up with wooden pickets." Again, in 1817, Samuel 
A. Storrow, who had been a judge advocate in the 
army, vlsithig Mackinac, describes the fort as *'a 
platform enclosed with palisades." He mentions, 
as did Heriot, four block-houses. It was the same 
rude and pi imitive style of fortification when first 
seen by Schoolcraft in 1820. It was still, however, 
in the early period of the century that the fort 
took on its present features. Its lines have been 
somewhat changed and much of the stone work 
has been built since the British founded it in 1780. 
The block-houses now standing are the originals; 
and within the memory of all but a ver^^ few of the 
oldest inhabitants there have been but the three 
we now see. The fourth one stood near the west 
Sally-Port.* This block-house and the one next 
on the east, both on the side looking towards 
Fort Holmes, Mr. Storrow considered of little 
military value. Another and much steeper path 
than the present one then led up the hillside. 
There was a very good well within the inclosure. 

*In correction of Ihe location assumed in 3rd edition of this book. 



1^_ 


il 


^Hj 


1 


4JHM 


! 




1 







ANTIQUE STYLE OF THE FORT. 43 

This well and also a Powder Magazine were near 
the east Sally-Port and the present Quartermast- 
er's building. 

In its inception and planting it is a military 
structure of a century ago, and with scarcely a 
feature to make it a fort of to-day's construction. 
It is a memento of the past and is replete in his- 
toric reminiscence. As a fortification, it is a curi- 
ous mixture of American frontier post and old- 
world castle. Its thick walls and sally-ports, and 
bastions and ditch, its old block-houses of logs, 
loop-holed for musketry, its sloping path down to 
the village street buttressed along the hillside 
with heavy masonry, above which grow grass and 
cedars up to the foot of the overlooking old 
"officer's quarters" — all this makes it a striking 
and picturesque object, a sort of mountain fortress, 
and certainly something unique in this country. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The war of the revolution had been fought and 
American independence acknowledged. But al- 
though the treaty of Paris in 1783 had secured 
all this upper lake country on the same general 
boundary lines as they run to-day, and Great Britain 
had stipulated that her troops should withdraw 
with all convenient speed, yet it was thirteen 
years afterward before the island came under our 
jurisdiction, and before the nation's flag floated 
over the fort. It was the same in respect to four 
or five other military posts situated on the Ameri- 
can side of the lakes. Washington, at the time 
President of the United States, had promptly sent 
Baron Steuben to Montreal to receive the forts 
from General Haldimand according to the treaty 
stipulations, but Haldimand replied he had no 
instructions from his government to make the de- 
livery, and that he could not even discuss the 
subject. General Knox was sent on the same 
errand in 1784 and likewise Col. Hull, but without 
accomplishing the object. The Government, by 
John Adams our minister to England, insisted on 
the same, but to no effect. 

Great Britain urged in explanation of her re- 
fusal the imperfect fulfillment on the American 
side of certain of the treaty stipulations. Some 
of the States of the Union had passed resolutions 

44 



DELAY IN FULFILLMENT OF TREATY. 45 

staying proceedings at law for all debts due to 
English creditors; and some had taken action rela- 
tive to those citizens who during the struggle had 
adhered to the mother country, and who had been 
known as Tories — action which was regarded by 
Great Britain as contrary to the treaty. Such 
grounds were made the plea for retaining these 
border posts. Our government responded that 
Congress had done all that lay within its power 
when it earnestly recommended to the States con- 
cerned, the repeal of all enactments which might 
conflict with the requirements of the treaty.* 

It was understood that Great Britain was loth 
to surrender this territory which, by reason of the 
extensive fur trade it afforded, was sure to become 
of great commercial importance. It is probable, 
too, a lingering belief that the experimental young 
Republic was not destined to a long career, and 
that there might soon come opportunity of renew- 
ing English dominion, made an element in the 
policy of delay. 

Negotiations were pending for a long time, and 
it required another treaty (this question however 
being only one of the many points embraced) be- 
fore the tardy transfer of these posts was effected. 
It was called the "Treaty of Amity, Commerce 
and Navigation" and was secured under the hand 
of the American plenipotentiary, John Jay. By 
that treaty, it was stipulated that on June 1st, 1796, 
the forts should be evacuated by the British and 
turned over to the United States. Owing to delays 

♦Whitelock's Ivife of Jay. Life and works of John Adams, vol. 8, p. 355. 



46 EARLY MACKINAC. 

on the part of Congress, our occupation of the 
posts was deferred beyond that date. As Wash- 
ington said in his address to Congress, December 
1796: ''The period during the late session, at 
which the appropriation was past for carrying 
into effect the treaty of amity, commerce and 
navigation, between the United States and His 
Britannic Majesty, necessarily procrastinated the 
reception of the posts stipulated to be delivered^ 
beyond the date assigned for that event." He adds: 
"As soon, however, as the Governor General of 
Canada could be addressed with propriety on the 
subject, arrangements were cordially and promptly 
concluded for their evacuation, and the United 
States took possession of them, comprehending 
Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac and 
Ft. Miami."* 

All the others of these frontier posts were de- 
livered over at, or near, the date prescribed — in 
the months of June and July. But in the case of 
Fort Mackinac, it was not until October 2nd of 
that year that the actual transfer was made» 
This date shows that the last act in the war of the 
American revolution, and the final scene and seal 
of its triumph, is connected with our Island, f 

But, besides negotiating with the English in 
the recovery of Mackinac, the American govern- 
ment had to deal with another class of proprietors 

♦American State Papers. 

+The Tablet, which the City of Detroit, Mich., at its Centennial cele- 
bration a few years since placed in the wall of the Government building, 
commemorating the delivery of th° fort at that place, July 11th, 17%, and 
which describes the evacuation as the "closing act of the war of indepen- 
dence," needs some modification. 



NEGOTIATION WITH THE INDIANS. 47 

— the original possessors of the soil. Accordingly, 
while the delivery of the island and post was still 
pending, Gen. Wayne's treaty with the Indians, 
(Treaty of Greenville) was made in August, 1795 , 
by which "a tract of land was ceded on the main, 
to the north of the island on "which the post of 
Michilimackinac stands, to measure six miles on 
Lakes Huron and Michigan, and to extend three 
miles back from the waters of the lake on the 
strait." * Bois Blanc, or White Wood Island, was 
also ceded as the voluntary gift of the Chippewas. 
The Indians were to receive ^8,000 annually, besides 
120,000 then distributed. 

Perhaps the unfinished state of the post, as 
reported in 1792, and the complaint made of its 
condition in 1793, and its sore need of repairs, 
(referred to above), may be explained on the 
ground that the English authorities, well knowing 
it was within American lines, and apprehending 
that it must soon pass out of their control, deemed 
it unwise to incur any large expenditure on it. 
In fact, we find Captain Robertson saying in a 
letter, as early as 1784, that in compliance with 
orders he had received, no more labor was given 
to a post which by treaty had been ceded to the 
Americans, than was necessary to "command some 
respect for the safety of the garrison and traders, 
surrounded as I am by a great number of Indians 
not in the best humor. " It is probable, therefore, 
that when at length it came into our hands it was in 
need of considerable attention, f or we find Washing- 

♦Holmes American Annals, Vol. 2, p. 4U2. 



48 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ton, in the same address to Congress just quoted 
from, saying of these posts that "such repairs and 
additions had been ordered as appeared indispen- 
sable."* It is also probable that the American 
force sent to occupy the post at the departure of 
the British soldiers was quite imposing, as we have 
Timothy Pickering, Washington's Secretary of 
"War, in his report of February, 1796, saying: "To 
appear respectable in the eyes of our British 
neighbors, the force with which we take possession 
of these posts should not be materially less than 
that with which they now occupy them. This 
measure," he adds, "is also important in relation 
to the Indians, on whom first impressions may 
have very beneficial effects. " * Accordingly, the 
first detachment to occupy Mackinac, as an Ameri- 
can garrison, consisted of four officers, one com- 
pany of Artillery and Engineers, and one company 
of Infantry, Major Henry Burback being in com- 
mand of the whole force. The British retired to 
the island of St. Joseph, on the Canada side a little 
above Detour, and established a fort there. 

Following the change of flag and sovereignty, 
nothing very stirring seems to have developed in 
the island history during the years immediately 
succeeding. It soon became, however, a great 
commercial seat and emporium in the wilderness. 
The chief commodity was furs. From an early 
day this had been a business carried on by the 
individual traders who went among the Indians. 
In course of time these operations assumed a 
laro^er and more systematic form under the hands 

* American State Papers. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE ISLAND. " 49 

of strong chartered companies. Of this I shall 
speak later. The situation of the island in the 
far northern country, its direct communication by 
the great lakes with the remotest parts east, south, 
west and north, and its being the principal seat of 
white habitation and commerce and military 
authority on the watery highway, and the key to 
the whole upper country — all this gave it an ex- 
tended reputation in that early day. Travellers, 
sometimes from Europe as well as from our own 
eastern states, would touch at the island, visit 
its fort and explore its woods and its natural 
curiosities even as is done now. The fur trade, 
together with other lines of traftic which it stimu- 
lated, made the island for many years a great com- 
mercial seat. It is reported, for instance, for the 
year 1804, that the goods entered at the Mackinac 
Custom House yielded a revenue to the United 
States of about 160,000. 

While at this time our island w^as United States 
territory, and the fort with its ever floating flag 
was a visible token of its Americanism, the village 
as a whole, with its Indian and French population 
and its style of construction — much of its archi- 
tecture being a kind of cross between the white 
settler's hut and the Indian's birch bark lodge — 
perhaps did not appear so characteristically 
American. Let us look at its picture as drawn by 
Washington Irving in his ' 'Astoria. " It is Mackinac 
as seen in 1810. He is describing an expedition 
under way for the far northw^est and the head 
waters of the Missouri, in the interest of Mr. 
Astor's enterprises. The party had fitted out in 



50 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Montreal, under Wilson P. Hunt, of New Jersey; 
and in one of the large canoes, thirty or forty feet 
long, universally used in those days in the schemes 
of commerce, had slowly made their way up the 
Ottawa river, and by the old route of the fur traders 
along a succession of small lakes and rivers, to our 
island. Here the party remained about three 
weeks, having stopped for the purpose of taking 
on more goods and to engage more recruits. 
Irving thus describes the place: 

"It was not until the 22nd. of July that they 
arrived at Mackinaw, situated on the island of the 
same name, at the confluence of Lakes Huron and 
Michigan. This famous old French trading post 
continued to be a rallying point for a multifarious 
and motley population. The inhabitants were 
amphibious in their habits, most of them being or 
having been voyageurs or canoe-men. It was the 
great place of arrival and departure of the south- 
west fur trade. Here the Mackinaw Company had 
established its principal post, from whence it com- 
municated with the interior and with Montreal. 
Hence its various traders and trappers set out for 
their respective destinations about Lake Superior 
and its tributary waters, or for the Mississippi, 
the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the other regions 
of the west. Here, after the absence of a year or 
more, they returned with their peltries, and settled 
their accounts; the furs rendered in by them being 
transmitted, in canoes, from hence to Montreal. 
Mackinaw was, therefore, for a great j^art of the 
year, very scantily peopled; but at certain seasons, 
the traders arrived from all points, with their 



WASHINGTON IRVING'S SKETCH. 51 

crews of voyageurs, and the place swarmed like a 
hive. 

* 'Mackinaw, at that tiijie, was a mere village, 
stretching along a small bay, with a fine broad 
beach in front of its principal row of houses, and 
dominated by the old fort, which crowned an 
impending height. The beach was a kind of pub- 
lic promenade, where were displayed all the 
vagaries of a seaport on the arrival of a fleet from 
a long cruise. Here voyageurs frolicked away 
their wages, fiddling and dancing in the booths 
and cabins, buying all kinds of knick-knacks, 
dressing themselves out finely, and parading up 
and down, like arrant braggarts and coxcombs. 
Sometimes they met with rival coxcombs in the 
young Indians from the opposite shore, who would 
appear on the beach, painted and decorated in 
fantastic style, and would saunter up and down, to 
be gazed at and admired, perfectly satisfied that 
they eclipsed their pale-faced competitors. 

*'Now and theji a chance party of 'North- 
westers' appeared at Mackinaw from the rendez- 
vous at Fort William. These held themselves up 
as the chivalry of the fur trade. They were men 
of iron, proof against cold weather, hard fare, and 
perils of all kinds. Some would wear the north- 
west button, and a formidable dirk, and assume 
something of a military air. They generally wore 
feathers in their hats, and affected the 'brave.' 
'Je suis un homme du nordf — 'I am a man of the 
north, ' one of these swelling fellows would exclaim, 
sticking his arms akimbo and ruf0.ing by the South- 
westers, whom he regarded with great contempt, 



52 EARLY MACKINAC. 

as men softened by mild climates and the luxurious 
fare of bread and bacon, and whom he stigmatized 
with the vain-glorious name of 'pork eaters.' * * 
The little cabarets and sutlers' shops along the 
bay resounded with the scraping of fiddles, with 
snatches of old French songs, with Indian whoop? 
and yells. " 

But the reader must not think there was no 
other side to the social life of the earl^; Mackinac 
of that period. Irving\s picture is only t.jat of the 
wharves, and the floating population, such as the 
manager of a water expedition, stopping over but 
a little while, wouki be the most likely to see. 
Although the resident population was very small, 
there were, at the same time, the families of 
settled homes, and with the social interests and 
sympathies and pleasures common to American 
village life — subject of course to many inconven- 
iences and privations incident to their remoteness 
in a wilderness world. I find a pleasing descrip- 
tion written by a lady, who was taken to the island 
when a child, in the year 1812, just before the 
war opened and who spent the years of her girlhood 
there. 

The houses of the village at that time, she 
says, were few, quaint and old. Every house had 
its garden enclosed with cedar pickets. These were 
kept whitewashed, as also the dwellings and the 
fort. There were but two streets in the village. 
One ran from point to point of the crescent harbor, 
and as near the water's edge as the beach would 
permit — the pebbles forming a border between the 
water and the road. (It will be remembered that 



ANOTHER EARLY DESCRIPTION. 58 

tlie water's edge in earlier years was considerably 
more inland than now.) A foot path in the middle 
was all that was needed, as there were no vehicles 
of any description, except dog-trains or sleds in 
the winter. There were no schools, no physician, 
and no resident minister of religion.* Occasionally 
a priest would come on visitation to the Catholic 
flock. In winter the isolation was complete. 
Navigation closed usually by the middle of October, 
and about eight months were passed in seclusion 
from the outer world. The mail came once a month 
"when it did not miss." There were no amuse- 
ments other than parties. The children, however, 
made houses in the snow drifts, and coasted down 
hill. Spring always came late, and as it was the 
custom to observe May day they often planted the 
May pole on the ice. Once she records, for the 8th 
of May, "Ice in the Basin good." She relates that 
in th^ autumn of 1823, the ice formed very early, 
but owing to high winds and a strong current it 
would break up over and over, and be tossed to and 
fro, until it was piled to a great height in clear, 
towering blue masses; and all that met the eye 
across to the opposite island were beautiful 
mountains of ice. The soldiers and fishermen cut 
a road through. This made a winter's highway for 
the dog sleds, the passage winding between high 
walls of ice, with nothing' to be seen but the sky 
above. Again, in other seasons, the ice would be 
perfectly smooth. The exciting times on the Island, 

* Schoolcraft at the time of his first visit to the island, in 1820, re- 
marked on its need of a preacher, a school-master, an attorney, and a 
physician. "Of merchants," he adds, "there are always too many." 



54 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



she says, were when Le Caneau du Nord came. As 
the canoes neared the town there would come 
floating on the air the far-famed Canadian boat 
song. The voyageurs landing, the Indians would 
soon follow and the little island seemed to overflow 
with human life. These exciting times would last 




WALK-IN-THE-WATER 

(from an old time wood cut.) 

First Steamboat on the Upper lyakes. Built in 1818' At 

Mackinac, June, 1819. Wrecked near Buffalo, Nov. 

1821. Described by one of that day as "A weak 

but elegant boat." 

for six or eight weeks. ' 'Then would follow the 
quiet, uneventful, and to some, dreary days, yet to 
most, days that passed happily."* 

It is interesting to find the following comment 
on Mackinac written by a visitor in the early 
Deriod now spoken of, and to note his warm ap- 

*Mrs. H. S. Baird, whose reminiscences of Mackinac were published 
in a Green Bay newspaper, 1882. They are preserved in the "Wisconsin 
Historical Collections," vol. ix. l^r. Gurdon Hubbard, identified with the 
business of the island in those early days, and acquainted with all its 
families, says of this lady, in his autobiography (1802-1886) that she was 
"highly educated and was considered the belle of Mackinaw." 



A TRIBUTE TO THE ISLAND. 55 

preciation of the island then, and his prediction 
concerning its future: "Mackinaw is really worth 
seeing. I think it by no means improbable that 
it will become a place of fashionable resort for the 
summer. There is no finer summer climate in the 
world. The purest, sweetest air, lake scenery in 
all its aged and grand magnificence and the purest 
water. * * * No flies and no mosquitoes, nothing 
to annoy, but every variety for the eyes, the taste 
and the imaorination."* 



*Col. McKenney in 1826— joint Commissioner with Governor Cass 
in negotiating with the Indians. 



CHAPTER V. 

The year 1812 brought our second war with 
the mother country. In it our little island played 
apart, and indeed it may be said to have ''opened 
the ball." The very first scene of the war was 
enacted here. The two governments had been 
under strained relations for some thne before, and 
on the 19th of June, of that year, the state of war 
was declared by President Madison. It was a 
mystery at the time, and something which excited 
clamor and, in the frenzy of the hour, even insinu- 
ations of treachery against high officials at Wash- 
ington, that the English commanders in Canada 
knew the fact so much in advance of our own. 
One explanation is that our very deliberate Secre- 
tary of War trusted to the ordinary postal medium 
in communicating with the frontier troops, while 
the agents of the English government sent the 
news by special messengers. General Hull, com- 
mander of the department of Michigan, said he did 
not receive iuformation of the fact until fourteen 
days after war was declared; while General Brock, 
the British commander opposite, had official 
knowledge of it four or five days sooner. And 
likewise Lieutenant Hanks, of our island post, was 
in blissful ignorance of the fact, until he saw the 
British cannon planted in his rear, just four weeks 
after war had been determined upon. 

56 



THE FORT SURPRISED ^i 

The English officer, Captain Roberts, com- 
manding at the Island of St. Joseph, on the near-by 
Canada border, had received orders Immediately to 
undertake the capture of the strategic point of 
Mackinac. He gathered a force, consisting of 
Canadian militia (the English Fur Co's voyageurs 
and other employees), and a large number of In- 
dians, besides having the regular soldiers of 
the garrison. The expedition was admirably 
managed. An open attack in front would have 
been impossible of success. So, secretly sailing 
from St. Joseph, they landed, unperceived, on the 
northwest side of the island, at 3 o'clock in the 
morning, on the spot known ever since as "British 
Landing. " The troops had an unobstructed march 
across the island and were soon in position with 
their cannon on the higher ground commanding 
the fort in the rear, the Indian allies establishing 
themselves in the woods on either flank. 

The American commandant and his little hand- 
ful of men then learned, at the same moment, the 
two facts, that the United States and Great Britain 
were at war, and that the surrender of Fort 
Mackinac Avas demanded. Resistance was impos- 
sible, and thus again the flag was raised over its 
walls that had first floated there. Pothier, an 
agent of the Northwest Fur Company, who ac- 
companied the expedition and commanded a part 
of the force, thus laconically reported it to Sir 
Geo. Prevort: ''The Indian traders arrived at St. 
Joseph with a number of their men, so that we were 
now enabled to form a force of about two hundred 
and thirty Canadians and three hundred and 



58 EARLY MACKINAC. 

twenty Indians, exclusive of the garrison. With 
that force we left St. Joseph on the 16th, at eleven 
o'clock A. M. , landed at Michilimackinac at three 
o'clock the next morning, summoned the garrison 
to surrender at nine o'clock, and marched in at 
eleven" — just twenty-four hours after setting forth 
on their hostile errand. He adds further, that 
there were between two and three hundred other 
Indian warriors who had expected to join the ex- 
pedition, but failed; that two days after the capitu- 
lation, they came. But he intimates that this band 
was in an undecided state of mind and partly inclin- 
ed to favor the Americans. 

Captain Roberts, in his report to General 
Brock, dated the day of the capture (July 17th), 
says: 'We embarked with two of the six pounders 
and every man I could muster, and at ten o'clock 
we were under weigh. "Arrived at three o'clock 
A. M. One of those unwieldy guns was brought 
Tip with much difficulty to the heights above the 
fort and in readiness to open about ten o'clock, at 
which time a summons was sent in and a capitula- 
tion soon after agreed on. I took immediate 
possession of the fort and displayed the British 
colors." 

As presenting an American account of the 
surprise and capture, the official report of Lieut. 
Hanks is herewith given. It was made to Gen. 
Hull, his commajiding officer, and was issued from 
Detroit, whither the officers and men of the cap- 
tured garrison had been sent on parole : 



LIEUT. HANKS' REPORT. 59 

''Detroit, August 12th, 1812. 

"Sir: — I take the earliest opportunity to ac- 
quaint Your Excellency of the surrender of the 
garrison of Micliilimackinac, under my command, 
to His Britannic Majesty's forces, under the com- 
mand of Captain Charles Roberts, on the 17th 
ultimo, the particulars of which are as follows: 
On the 16th, I was informed by the Indian interpre- 
ter that he had discovered from an Indian, that the 
several nations of Indians then at St. Joseph (a 
British garrison, distant about forty miles) intend- 
ed to make an immediate attack on Michilimack- 
inac. * * * 

'I immediately called a meeting of the Ameri- 
can gentlemen at that time on the island, in which 
it was thought proper to dispatch a confidential 
IDerson to St. Joseph, to watch the motions of the 
Indians. 

"Captain Michael Dousrnan, of the militia, was 
thought the most suitable for this service. He 
embarked about sunset, and met the British forces 
within ten or fifteen miles of the island, by whom 
he w^as made prisoner and put on his parole of 
honor. He was landed on the island at daybreak, 
with positive directions to give me no intelligence 
whatever. He was also instructed to take the in- 
habitants of the village, indiscriminately, to a place 
on the west side of the island, where their persons 
and property should be protected by a British 
guard, but should they go to the fort, they would 
be subject to a general massacre by the savages, 
which would be inevitable if the garrison fired a 



00 EARLY MACKINAC. 

gun. This information I received from Dr. Day,* 
who was passing through the village when every 
person was flying for refuge to the enemy. I 
immediately, on being informed of the approach of 
the enemy, placed ammunition, etc., in the block 
houses; ordered every gun charged, and made 
every preparation for action. About nine o'clock 
I could discover that the enemy were in possession 
of the heights that commanded the fort, and one 
piece of their artillery directed to the most defense- 
less part of the garrison. The Indians at this time 
were to be seen in great numbers in the edge of 
the woods. 

' 'At half past eleven o'clock the enemy sent in 
a flag of truce demanding a surrender of the fort 
and island to His Britannic Majesty's forces. f 
This, Sir, was the first information I had of the 
declaration of war. 1, however, had anticipated it, 
and was as well prepared to meet such an event 
as I possibl}^ could have been with the force under 
my command, amounting to fifty-seven effective 
men, including officers. Three American gentle- 
men, who were prisoners, were permitted to ac- 
company the flag. From them I ascertained the 
strength of the enemy to be from nine hundred to 

*The Post surgeon. 

tAs to the difference in the hour which appears in these three 
official statements, it is pi-obable each writer had in mind some 
different stage of the event. The question of the surrender of tlie 
island had its preliminary stage at an earUer hour in the morning at the 
old distillery at the western end of the village, between some of the 
British officers and certain of the citizens, while the formal demand on 
the post was not made until later in the day. And, again, Captain 
Robex-ts may have noted the time of writing his demand at his own 
headquarters and Lieut. Hanks the time it reached his hands. 



LIEUT. HANKS' REPOR'l'. 6i 

one thousand strong, consisting of regular troops, 
Canadians and savages; ^that they had two pieces 
of artillery, and were provided with ladders and 
ropes for the purpose of scaling the works, if 
necessary.* After I had obtained this information 
I consulted my officers, and also the American 
gentlemen present, who were very intelligent men; 
the result of which was, that it was impossible for 
the garrison to hold out against such a superior 
force. In this opinion I fully concurred, from the 
conviction that it was the only measure that could 
prevent a general massacre. The fort and garri- 
son were accordingly surrendered. 

''In consequence of this unfortunate affair, I 
beg leave. Sir, to demand that a Court of Inquiry 
may be ordered to investigate all the facts con- 
nected with it; and I do further request, that the 
Court may be specially directed to express their 
opinion on the merits of the case. 

"Porter Hanks, 
' ^Lieutenant of Artillery. ' ' 
**His Excellency Gen. Hull, 

'^Commanding the N. W. Army.'' 

It is not necessary to discuss the question 
whether the surrender at Fort Mackinac, without 
a show of resistance, was justifiable. The garrison 
w^as but a handful of men. By no fault of his, the 

*A discrepancy in the estimate of troops as made by opposing sides, 
especially in reports from the battle field, is very common. A recent 
History of Canada, however, (published in 1897), is inexcusably out of 
the way, when it makes Captain Roberts' attacking force ''less than two 
hundred," as far as votjagetirs and regulars were concerned, and makes 
no mention whatever of the large number of Indian allies. 



62 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Lieutenant in command liad been taken entirely 
unawares. The enemy were in overwhelming 
numbers and occupying a position with their 
cannon which commanded the fort. Their Indian 
allies were waiting in savage eagerness for the. 
attack, and had the fighting once begun it would 
have been beyond the power of the officers to re- 
strain them.* 

The capture of Mackinac, the first stroke of 
the war, was of tlie highest importance to the 
British interests. Valuable stores of merchandise, 
as well as considerable shipping which stood in tlie 
harbor, were secured. It gave them the key to the 
fur trade of a vast region, and the entire command 
of tlie upper lakes. It exposed Detroit and all 
lower Michigan. It greatly terrified General Hull, 
who commanded the department of Michigan. It 
arrested his operations in Canada. He said: "The 
whole northern hordes of Indians will be let down 
upon us. " His surrender, just one month later, 
was in part due to the panic it caused — one histor- 
ian of that day, saying: "Hull was conquered at 
Mackinac. " 

On the island, the British proceeded at once to 
strengthen their position. In order to guard against 
any approach in the rear, like the successful one 
they themselves had made, they built a very strong 
earth- work on the high hill, a half mile, or little 
more, back of the post, which they called Fort 
George, in honor of the King of England. This 
fortification still remains, now known to all visitors 

*Jolin Askin, of the British storekeeping department, and present 
with the besieging force, said, that had the soldiers of the fort fired a 
gun, he firmly believed not a soul of them would have been saved. 
Askin"s letter desci'ibing capture of the fort; Appendix E. 



CONSTRUCTING FORT HOLMES. 63 

as Fort Holmes. In its construction the citizens of 
the village were impressed, every able bodied man 
being required to give three days in the pick and 
shovel work. 

A common error prevails that this ancient 
earth-work was actually constructed the very night 
the British arrived, and that it made part of 
the formidable investment of Fort Mackinac which 
led to its speedy surrender. A moment's reflection 
will show this could not have been the case. The 
invading force only landed at three o'clock that 
morning and then, with all their trappings, had to 
march two miles to get into position, and yet were 
ready by ten o'clock to open fire. It is probable 
this hill was the "heights above the fort," to 
which, as Captain Roberts says in his report, "one 
of those unwieldy guns was brought up with much 
difficulty;" and that far the Fort Holmes' site 
figured in the demonstration against Lieut. Hanks' 
command. The fortification itself, however, being 
the scientific work of military engineers, and in- 
volving a protracted period of hard labor, was con- 
structed afterwards at the British commandant's 
leisure. The other one of Captain Roberts "two 
six-pounders, " together with the great bulk of his 
men, including his Indians, we may suppose, oc- 
cupied the ridge of ground, part open and part 
wooded, between the hill and the post, just beyond 
the old parade ground, which lies outside the 
present fort fence. 

Captain Roberts was relieved, September 1813, 
and Captain Bullock appointed in his place. Col. 
McDouall assumed charge in the spring of 1814. 
This officer's name often appears as McDonall. 



CHAPTER VI. 

By Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie, 
and General Harrison's victorious battle of the 
Thames, the autumn of 1813 found the Americans 
in possession of Lake Huron, and nearly all of 
Michigan. The re -capture of Mackinac was deter- 
mined on. In the early spring of 1814, an expedi- 
tion for this purpose was j^lanned, which, however, 
did not get under sail until July 3rd, embarking 
from Detroit that day. It was a joint naval and 
military force. There were seven w^ar vessels un- 
der Commodore Sinclair, and a land force of 750 
men, under command of Col. Croghan. The object, 
besides the retaking of Mackinac, was also to 
destroy the English post at St. Joseph, and to in- 
flict whatever damage it could on the military 
stores and shipping of the enemy on the neighbor- 
ing border of Canada. These war brigs and other 
vessels of the squadron were the largest ever seen, 
up to that time, on the waters of St. Clair and 
Huron. The commanders, instead of sailing at 
once to Mackinac, concluded to first dispatch their 
other errands. They found St. Joseph already 
abandoned by the British, but they captured some 
English schooners and other propert'y, and con- 
tinued their incursion as far as the Sault where 
they destroyed a large amount of supplies — Major 
Holmes being in charge of the expedition. They 
then turned back for Mackinac. 

The English fully appreciated the great value, 

64 



REINFORCING THE POST. 65 

strategically and commercially, of Mackinac and 
were determined to hold it. They took strong- 
measures for its defense. Col, McDouall, who had 
been sent there in May of that year as the new 
commandant, was a very energetic and skillful 
soldier. He brought with him fresh troops from 
Canada, ammunition and provisions, and other 
things needful. Besides this fact, the garrison 
were by no means ignorant of the expedition in 
these northern waters, and of its object; and there 
was no possibility of a surprise attack. One of the 
officers belonging to the reinforcement which had 
been sent to the post thus w^rote: "After our ar- 
rival at the island all hands were employed 
strengthening the defences of the fort. For up- 
wards of two months half the garrison watched at 
niglit against attack. " The Indians from the sur- 
rounding country, and Canadians here and there, 
were called in for aid. Besides the additional fort 
which they had built, Fort George, (now Fort 
Holmes, and already referred to) batteries were 
placed at various points outside the walls which 
commanded the approaches to the beach. One 
was on the height overlooking the ground in front 
of the present Grand Hotel, another on the high 
knoll just west of the fort, while others lined the 
east bluff between the present fort grounds and 
Robinson's Folly. 

Our American officers at first thought of erect- 
ing a battery on Round Island and shelling the fort 
from there. A yawl was sent with a squad of men 
to reconnoitre, and a spot fixed upon. This was 
seen by the Englishcommander and he immediately 



66 EARLY MACKINAC. 

sent over a large detachment of Indians, who 
forced the little party to flee. One of the men, 
however, waited too long, tempted by the berries 
which grew at his feet, and missed the boat and 
was captured. The Indians rowed in with their 
prisoner, chanting the death dirge and expecting 
to disjDOse of him on the shore in their nsual 
barbaric manner; and in their wild frenzy of delight, 
some of the squaws, before the canoe had touched 
the beach, rushed into the water, w^aist deep, with 
whetted knives raised aloft, to begin at once the 
w^ork of savage torturing. But the officer of the 
fort, divining their object, had sent a squad of 
soldiers to protect the hapless prisoner. 

The extended level ground just west of the 
village streets, was also considered as a point 
where a landing could be made, and the taking of 
the fort be attempted, under cover of the guns of 
the vessels. But Captain Sinclair, who described 
the fort hill as a "perfect Gibraltar, *' found that 
his vessels would only be exposed to a raking fire 
from the heights above without his being able to 
elevate his guns sufficiently for return shots. 

After hovering about the island for a week it 
was concluded there was no other way than to 
imitate the plan of the successful enemy, two years 
before. So they sailed around to "British Land- 
ing" and disembarked, August 4th, and marched as 
far as the Dousman farm (now Early's farm). But 
the conditions were entirely different from those of 
two years ago, and the movement was ill-starred, 
and a melancholy failure- According, however, to 
the reports made by the joint commanders of the 



FAILURE OF THE ATTACK. 67 

expedition, it was not so much their plan to at- 
tempt the storming of the works, as to feel the 
enemy's strength and to establish a lodgment from 
which by slow and gradual approaches, and by 
siege, they might hope for success. All such ex- 
pectations were soon dissijDated. Facing the open 
field on the Dousman farm were the thick woods. 
This was a perfect cover to the Indian skirmishers, 
who, concealed in their vantage points, hotly at- 
tacked our soldiers; to say nothing of an English 
battery of four pieces, firing shot and shells. 
There could be neither advance nor encamping. 
The only wise thing was to retreat to the vessels. 
This was done and the expedition left the island, 
having lost fifteen killed and about fifty wounded. 
Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, next in command 
to Colonel Croghan, was one of the slain in this 
most unfortunate and fruitless action. He fell 
while leading his battalion in a flank movement on 
the right. One story is that the gun which pierced 
his breast with two balls was fired by a little Indian 
boy. Another tradition is that the Major had 
been warned that morning, by a civilian aboard the 
vessel, not to wear his uniform which would make 
him a target, but that he declined the friendly ad- 
vice saying, that if it was his day to fall he w^as 
ready.* 

Major Holmes was a Virginian, an intelligent 
and promising young officer wiio enjoyed the 
friendship of Thomas Jefferson. He had already 
distinguished himself in a battle near Detroit, and 
had performed well a special service assigned him 

*Charles J. IngersoU in ••Sketehof the Secund War," Vol. 2. 



68 EARLY MACKINAC. 

in this same expedition, when at the Sault St. 
Marie. In the. official reports of the Mackinac 
battle he was referred to as that "gallant officer, 
Major Holmes, whose character is so well known 
to the war department;" and again as "the valuable 
and ever-to-be lamented officer." His body had 
been carried off the field and secreted by a faithful 
negro servant, and the next day was respectfully 
delivered to the Americans by Colonel McDouall 
and taken to Detroit for burial. A very fitting 
tribute to his memory was it, that when in the 
following year the island again came under our 
flag, the name of the new fort on the summit 
heights, which had been built by the English, was 
changed from Fort George to Fort Holmes. 

The fort being found impregnable by assault, 
no further attempts at capture were made, and the 
expedition returned down the lake to Detroit, the 
most of the soldiers being sent to join General 
Brown's forces on the Niagara. 

But the ambition to regain the island was not 
yet abandoned. It was thought to starve out the 
garrison and thus force a surrender. English 
supplies could now come only from Canada through 
the Georgian Bay. Near the mouth of the Not- 
tawasaga river at the southeast corner of that bay, 
under a protecting block house, was the schooner 
"Nancy" loaded with six months' sui^plies of pro- 
visions intended for the Mackinac fort. A de- 
tachment of the American troops landing there 
blew up the block house and destroyed the 
schooner and her .supplies. There remained now 
nothing more to do than to so guard the waters 



SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS. 69 

that the destitution of the island could not be re- 
paired. Two of the vessels, the "Tigress'' and the 
"Scorpion," were left to maintain a strict blockade. 
This was proving very effective, and provisions ran 
so low in Mackinac, that a loaf of bread would sell 
for a dollar on the' streets, and the men of the 
garrison were killing horses for meat. 

The following extract from a letter w^ritten by 
one of the English officers depicts the situation 
within the fort at this time: "After the failure of 
the attack, the Americans established a blockade by 
which they intercepted our supplies. We had but 
a small store of provisions. The commander grew 
very anxious. The garrison was put on short al- 
lowances. Some horses that happened to be on 
the island were killed and salted down, and we oc- 
casionally were successful in procuring fish from 
the lake. To economize oar means the greater 
part of the Indians were induced to depart to their 
homes. At length we saw ourselves on the verge 
of starvation with no hope of relief from any 
quarter. " 

During all the summer we find Colonel Mc- 
Douall in his letters to the department begging and 
entreating for supplies. 

There were yet other embarrassments. Al- 
though thoughout the whole period the Indians of 
the Mackinac region were allies of the British, the 
alliance was not without its difficulties. Many of 
them showed an indecision when success was 
doubtful, as one of the English agents wrote, and 
"a predilection in favor of the Americans seemed 
to influence them." About the island "they be- 



70 EARLY MACKINAC. 

came very clamorous, " another officer said. And 
Col, McDouall spoke of them as "an uncertain 
quantity" — that they "were fickle as the wind and 
it was a difficult task to keep them with us. " He 
was embarrassed, too, by their flocking to the 
island and requiring to be fed. 

But relief, and that by their own sagacity and 
daring, was at hand for the beleaguered garrison. 
When the "Nancy" and the block house ou the 
Nottawasaga were destroyed, the officer in charge 
of that supjDly of stores, Lieut. Worsley, with 
seventeen sailors of the Royal Navy, had managed 
to escape and effect a passage in an open boat to 
the fort at Mackinac and had reported the loss of 
the stores. Forced by the necessity of the situ- 
ation, a bold and desperate project was undertaken 
— that was, the capture of the two blockading 
vessels. Batteaux were fitted out and equipped at 
Mackinac, manned under Lieut. Worsley with his 
seamen and by volunteers from the garrison and 
Indians, making in all about seventy men. These 
set forth on the bold errand. The Scorpion and 
Tigress were then cruising in the neighborhood of 
Detour. On a dark night, rowing rapidly and in 
silence, they approached first the Tigress, which 
lay at anchor off St. Joseph, and taking it entirely 
by surprise, leaped, aboard and after a hand to 
hand struggle soon had possession. Its crew were 
sent next day, as prisoners to Mackinac. The 
Tigress's signals were in the hands of the captors, 
and the American pennant was kept flying at the 
mast-head. On the second day after, the Scorpion 
was seen beating up towards her companion ship 



BRITISH APPRECIATION OF MACKINAC. 71 

unaware of its change of fortune. Night coming 
on she anchored some two miles off. About day- 
light the Tigress set all sail, sw^ept down on her, 
opened fire and boarded and captured her. Sad 
fate, indeed, for these two war vessels, which only 
a year before had honorably figured in Commodore 
Perry's victory on Lake Erie. I prefer not to 
dwell on the mortifying bit of history, except to 
say that candor and justice compel our highest 
admiration for this English feat of daring and 
prowess. 

This ended all attempts to dislodge the Eng- 
lish from our island. It remained under their flag 
until terms of peace and settlement w^ere secured 
by the treaty of Ghent, February 1815. Mackinac 
was ever a favorite point in the eyes of the British, 
and all along an object of their strong desire; and 
they were loath to give it up. Col. McDouall, 
the able and successful commandant, spoke with 
strong feeling of the ' 'unfortunate cession of the 
fort and the island of Michilimackinac to the 
United States." It had been a matter of official 
complaint and criticism in the province of Upper 
Canada, that after the first war it had been "in- 
judiciously ceded" by the English government. 
John Jay, our American representative in the con- 
ference of the treaty and the boundary lines, 
found that the commissioners of the Crown were 
more interested in an "extended commerce than in 
the possession of a vast tract of wilderness." The 
fur trade at that time W'as the main thing and 
Mackinac was the gateway to all the fur traffic of 
the west and south w^est fields.* And again, it ap- 

♦Appeudix F. 



72 EARLY MACKINAC. 

pears in negotiating the treaty of 1815 that the com- 
missioners of the crown, even when feeling obliged 
to forego a large part of their demands, still held 
out for the island of Mackinac (and Fort Niagara) 
as long as possible.* Thirty-two years had now 
passed since the American right to the island had 
been acknowledged by the treaty of 1783. Of these 
years only three had been years of war. But for 
one-half of that whole period the British flag had 
been flying over Fort Mackinac. In the complete 
sense, therefore, the destiny of the northwest was 
not assured until the treaty of Ghent. f With that 
treaty the question was finally and conclusively 
settled. 

The posts of the English which had been cajDtur- 
ed by us, and ours here and there, which they had 
taken, were to be restored by each government to 
the other. In connection with this mutual delivery 
is an interesting fact mentioned in a private 
letter which Colonel McDouall wrote to his friend 
and fellow officer of the English army, Captain 
Bulger. He says that in the equipment of Fort 
Mackinac, at the time he was making the transfer, 
were cannon bearing the inscriptions: "Taken at 
Saratoga;" ''Taken from Lord Cornwallis," and 
other such, and he speaks of his chagrin in being 
obliged to include, in his restoration of the fort, 
guns which told of English defeat and humiliation 
in the Revolutionary war; and that as an English- 
man he felt "a strong temptation to a breach of 

*Henry Adams' '• History of the United States," vol. 9, p. 34. 
tHinsclale's '-Old Northwest," p. 185. 



HISTORIC CANNON. 7^ 

that good faith which in all public treaties it is in- 
famy to violate." 

Surely it adds to our antiquarian and patriotic 
interest in the old fort to know that guns, captured 
from Burgoyne and from Cornwallis in the battles 
of the Revolution, once held position on these ram- 
parts. 

We do not know how these honorable trophies 
of the Revolution ever found their Avay to our re- 
mote pioneer out-post. We do know% however, that 
our loss of the fort, three years before, explains 
how they got back, temporarily, to their former 
English ownership. And now in their alternations 
of estate, after taking pari in keeping off American 
troops from the island, and thus, as it w^ere, re- 
deeming themselves in English eyes from the bad 
fortune incurred in our war for independence, they 
again fell to our hands. And we can appreciate 
Col. McDouall's sense of regret at having to give 
them up. It w^as the same sentiment which Capt. 
McAfee, in his narrative of that war in which he 
himself had a part, tells us was exhibited by some 
of the British officers when by Hull's surrender 
several brass cannon fell to their hands which bur 
forces had captared in the war of the Revolution — 
they "saluted them with tears."* 

It is vain to surmise the history of those in- 
teresting guns subsequent to 1815. How long they 
remained at the island post, and wdiether in time 
they were sent to the smelter's furnace, or are still 
in honorable preservation somewhere with other 
war relics, we cannot say. In this connection it 

^''History of the Late War in the Western Cow try.'" 



74 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



may be well to remark concerning that old fashion- 
ed cannon which has been lying in position on the 
village beach in front of the "fort garden," a 
familiar object for generations past. The story is 
that the gun figured in Com. Perry's battle on 
Lake Erie, though w^hether one of his own guns in 
the action or a British gun which he captured is 
uncertain; that it was left here long ago by one of 
the government revenue vessels. That it was put 



iMiim^'^^^' 










THE PERRY CANNON. 

in charge of the Mackinac Custom House, and that 
it used to serve on 4th of July and other national 
occasions which called for celebration "at the 
cannon's mouth.'' 

Although the treaty of Ghent had been made 
in December 1814, by which the island reverted to 
the United States, yet so long were the dispatches 
in reaching the post, that hostilities were conthiu- 
ing in its vicinity for three or four months after 
peace had been declared.* 

♦Likewise the battle of New Orleans was fought nearly a month after 
the treaty of peace had been made. 



BRITISH SEE-K A NEW SITE. 7o 

The instructions to McDouall were that he 
withdraw as soon as possible after July 1st, as 
occupation by the American troops was authorized 
by the 15th of that month. The withdrawal was 
delayed by the difficulty of deciding where to go. 
The British officers desired a locality near the 
boundary line, wiiich would be suitable for a mili- 
tary post and by which at the same time, they 
could favorably compete for control of the route 
between the upper and lower lakes. Added to this 
was the desire to maintain their hold on the Indians, 
and to secure all possible advantage in the fur 
commerce. 

While the general boundary line of division, 
as respects the northern end of Lake Huron, had 
been agreed on by the American and British 
authorities, yet in respect to every individual 
island which bordered on that line of water, it had 
not then been detinitely determined. But time 
pressed and the British authorities were compelled 
to decide on a spot; and an island, answ^ering well 
in poiut of locality and very suitable in all physi- 
cal features as a place of fortification, and^Dresum- 
ably within the British line, was chosen. It lies 
about two miles oif from Detour of the northern 
peninsula of Michigan at the entrance of the St. 
Mary's river connecting with Lake Superior. The 
Indian name it then bore y^'d^'s^ Pojitagaiiipy. After- 
ward it became known as Dri.mmond island, so 
called, it is presumed, in honor of Sir Gordon 
Drummond, at that time commander of the British 
forces in Canada. 

Although the place was now determined on. 



76 EARLY MACKINAC. 

further delay was occasioned by the scarcity of 
boats to effect the removal. And in the meantime 
a detachment of American troops under Col. 
Anthony Butler had arrived from Detroit to receive 
the fort. They came with a margin of time in ad- 
vance of the stipulated 15th, and went into camp 
on the level field below the fort. The British 
commandant was obliged to request a short exten- 
sion of time as the transportation facilities were 
not yet complete. This was courteously accorded, 
but there is a story to the effect that the American 
olficers insisted on unfurling the stars and stripes 
over their camp on the ground below, when the 
15th arrived — the British still occupying the fort. 
On the British leaving, Col. Butler took 
command, but soon resigned it to Major Willoughby 
Morgan who within a few months was succeeded 
by Col. Chambers. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The relinquishment of the straits by the 
British troops, and their retirement to Drummoncl 
Island, and establishing a post there, and the 
strained relations between them and their Ameri- 
can neighbors at Mackinac — all this forms a 
passage of some historical interest not unmixed 
with a comical element. 

At Drummond Island Col. McDouall began 
military fortifications on an extensive plan with 
the fond dream of establishing a commanding mili- 
tary and commercial center. The new post was 
only some forty miles from Mackinac. The firarri- 
sons were men of the same blood and language. 
They were neighbors and each the only near 
neighbor the other had. Peace prevailed between 
the two flags, and we might have thought of amity 
and fellowship in that remote wilderness of water 
and forest. But it was not long before relations 
became strained and letters of crimination and re- 
crimination went back and forth. One question per- 
tained to the ownership of Round Islan'd, lying 
Justin frontof Mackinac — the American authorities 
at the post chosing to ignore a deed of cession 
thereof made by the Indians to a certain indivi- 
dual of Mackinac village during the recent British 
control. But for the most part the grounds of dis- 
pute were so trifling and imaginary that the ebulli- 
tions of excited feeling seem now almost amusing. 
The Indians going back and forth, and seeking 

77 



78 EARLY MACKINAC. 

favors on each island, made mischief with their 
tongues. The white traders, too, in both places 
may have fomented the strife. A few of the vil- 
lagers, sympathizing more or less with the English 
cause, or having kindred among the Drummond 
people, had remained at Mackinac where their 
homes and property were. Tales were reported 
of their being wronged, and subjected to indigni- 
ties, and their business interfered with, and of one 
person in particular, the wife of a man who had 
gone to Drummond, being threatened as a "Biltish 
Spy;" and it was excitedly declared that there was 
"more liberty in Algeria than at present in Mich- 
limackinac." Col. McDouall, influenced by the 
exaggerated reports, wrote to the island authori- 
ties in a protesting and rather offensive tone. 
Putoff , the Mackinac agent of Indian affairs, " sent 
back a hot reply. In language emphatic, but not 
always elegant, he denied the allegations made of 
any injustice or indignity having been shown ; and 
in reference to the "spy" charge that the party 
declared she had never heard she was thus accused, 
that she stands ready ' 'to confront your informant 
and," to use her own phraseology, 'Give him the 
Lye!' " 

The writer then makes counter-charges and 
claims that according to reports brought by the 
Indians from Fort Drummond, Col. McDouall was 
endeavoring to interfere with Mackinac trade; 
that he had held a council with the Indians, and 
warned them against the Americans who proposed 
inviting them to Mackinaw for the purpose of 
secretly massacring them; that "red wampum and 



HEATED CORRESPONDENCE. 79 

tobacco mixed with vermillion" (the symbol of 
war) had been distributed; that barrels of rum were 
opened to inflame their animosity; and they were 
again urged to grasp the tomahawk, and that he 
himself was purposing soon to return with his big 
guns and recapture Mackinac. 

To this Col. McDouall replies; in his dignity, 
however, refusing to again communicate with the 
Indian Agent, but addressing his letter to Col. 
Chambers, the commandant at the fort. He laughs 
atwhathecalls "the absurd stories" of the Indians, 
and the "precious tissue of abominable lies. '^ 
He denies advising them against American trade. 
The charges that he had warned them against 
going to Mackinac lest they should be entrapped 
and destroyed, and had advised them to take up 
the tomahawk against the Americans and that he 
himself was planning an attack on their Island 
were idle tales. As to the barrels of rum, not 
even a glassful had been given, "so economically 
was the council conducted," he says. No wampum 
of a red kind or any other color had been distri- 
buted, nor had there been "the most distant allu- 
sion which malice could torture into the indication 
of approaching war." And the ''minute guns'' 
which had figured as a warlike tocsin in the story 
carried to Mackinac he explained, with a glowing 
British pride, was a royal salute fired in honor of 
the victory of Wellington at Waterloo over Napo- 
leon, ''the greatest despot that ever waded through 
slaughter to a throne. " This was in 1815, it will 
be remembered, two or three months after Water- 
loo; and it is interesting to find that away out in 



^0 EARLY MAC KINAC. 

the northernmost waters of Lake Huron, remote 
from all other seats of habitation, this event in 
European history was duly celebrated by the re- 
sounding guns. 

And so the poor Indians appear for the once 
v.s practical jokers at the expense of the superior 
race; telling "cock and bull" stories, now to one 
island and then to the other There is a blending 
of the comical and pathetic in the thought of these 
poor-children of the forest, so often the football of 
the whites, proving such serious mischief-mongers 
and stirring up so much bad blood between the 
two bands of their conquerors — as it were "play- 
ing off one against the other." 

We continue this story only to say that the 
high expectations in regard to Drummond Island 
as a British post, influential in Indian affairs and 
in the commerce along the American border, were 
doomedr to disappointment. McDouall was not 
allowed to develop, except to a very limited ex- 
tent, his plans of military fortifications, nor to 
realize his fond dream of making it a great com- 
mercial seat. He remained in command only for 
one year after leaving Mackinac, and returned to 
England, it is said, a disappointed man.* This 
disappointment marked the subsequent history of 
Drummond Island as a British seat. For, some 
years after settling there the joint commissioners 

*rhis British officer commands our respect for his high abilities. 
From his published letters he seems to have been a man of literary cul- 
ture, and capacity for state craft as well as military training. He at- 
tained the rank of Major General, and lived until 1848, haviug entered the 
army in 1796. Kingsford in his "Histori' of Canada," vol. 8, speaks of him 
as a "zealous and active officer, whose performance of the duties entrusted 
to him has entitled him to the most honorable mention." 



FORT OFFICERS OF FORMER DAYS. 81 

conferring concerning a few questions which still 
lingered between Canada and the United States 
respecting the division line in the island-studded 
part of upper Lake Huron and the river St. Mary, 
decided that that part of the lake in which Drum- 
mond Island lay belonged to the United States side 
of the line. Accordingly in 1828 the British garri- 
son removed and the island was turned over to 
our government.* 

To return now to our Island post in the straits. 
The Amercan spirit and regime were soon fully 
restored after its re-possession by our troops in 
1815. Prom that time on there was a loDg suc- 
cession of regular army soldiers aod officers 
inhabiting the old quarters and barracks. Many 
of the officers who afterwards acquired high rank 
and distinction during our civil war, 1861-1865, 
either in the Union Army or Southern, had been in 
service here as young Captains or Lieutenants. 
Among them were Gen, Sumner, Gen. Heintzel- 
man, Gen. Kirby Smith, Gen. Silas Casey, and 
Gen. Fred Steele, for whom a fort in the west has 
been named. General Pemberton was once a 
member of the garrison, and in a private letter 
written by one of the citizens in 1840, when the 
little island was ice-bound and there was a dearth 
of news, it is incidentally mentioned that "Lieut. 
Pemberton in the fort is engaged in getting up a 
private theatre, in an endeavor to ward oif winter 

*Samuel F. Cook, of I^ansing, Mich., has written a most interesting 
sketch of Drumtnond Island — giving the story of its occupation and final 
abandonment by the British; giving also some of the fascinating legend- 
ary lore which has gathered about the Spot. The sketch is embellished 
with numerous photographic views. 

Drummond Island in 1830; Apptndix G. 



82 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



and solitude," — the young officer little dreaming of 
that moi'e serious drama in which he was to act, 
twenty- three years later, as commander of Vicks- 
burg, with Grant's besieging army around him. 

During the civil war, all troops being needed 
at the front, the soldiers were withdrawm from our 

























X- 


A 


li 


-^, 


M 




1 


t 


5 


i 


m 


H^^ir-jri-J 


^^^ 



OFFICERS' QUARTERS. 

fort. This w^as but temporarj^ however, and did 
not mean its abandonment.* Its flag and a solitary 
Serjeant were left to show that it was still a military 
post of the United States. This faithful soldier 
remained at the fort for many years after tlie war, 
and was known to the visitors as the ' 'Old Serjeant. ' ' 



♦Occasionally at other times, also, the garrison would be tempor- 
arily sent elsewhere, but this never meant the giving up of the post. 



THE FORT SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. 83 

For a period during the war it was made the place 
of confinement of some of theConfederate prisoners, 
principally notable officers who had been captured, 
at which time Michigan volunteer troops held it. 
At the close of the war the fort resumed its old 
time service as a garrison post, generally about 
fifty or sixty men of the regular army, with their 
officers, composing the force. A detachment would 
serve a few years, then be transferred and another 
would take its place, to enjoy in its turn the recup- 
erative climate of the summer, and to endure the 
rigors and the isolation of the winters. So the old 
fort continued in use, with its morning and evening 
gun, its stirring bugle notes, its daily "guard 
mount," its pacing sentry, its drill, its "inspection 
days," until 1895. Then the sharp and decisive 
voice of authority called "halt" to the long march 
of military history in the straits of Mackinaw. 
The United States government, by formal act of 
Congress abandoned the fort, and gave it over, 
together with the National Park of eleven hundred 
acres, to the State of Michigan. The fort was dis- 
mantled, the old cannon were removed from the 
walls, and every soldier withdrawn. We do not 
question the fact, that as a fort constructed in 
primitive times it was un suited to the days of 
modern warfare; nor the fact that with the numer- 
ous other well equipped posts the department is 
maintaining for its troops, this old-fashioned one 
was not an absolute necessity. Nor do we ques- 
tion for a moment the propriety of making the 
State of Michigan the legatee and successor to this 
property, if the general government was determin- 



84 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ed to dispossess itself of it. It could not have been 
more suitably bestowed, if it had to pass into other 
hands. The commissioners, to whose charge it is 
now committed, appreciate and will cherish that 
historic and patriotic interest which attaches to the 
old fort, and will keep the grounds intact and care- 
fully guard the buildings. They will aim likewise 
to preserve the trees and the drives of the park in 
that natural beauty which has so long given them 
such charm. But while thus assured, it is aUthe 
same time a matter of deep regret that the national 
government should have forsaken the island. For 
sentimental reasons alone, even had there been no 
other, the old fort should have been retained as a 
United States post. A military seat which has two 
hundred years or more of history behind it, is not 
often to be found in the western world. Indeed, 
with the possible exception of Fort Marion, the 
old Spanish fortification at St. Augustine, Fla. , it 
is doubtful if there be another on this whole conti- 
nent, which could boast of so long a period of con- 
tinuous occupation as old Fort Michilimackinac, 
which was established first at St. Ignace in the 
17th century, then removed to old Mackinaw, and 
since 1780 has been located on our island. 

The Legislature of Michigan in the Spring oi 
1897, by formal act made the offer of re-cession to 
the United States of the old military post with all 
the garrison buildings and all the ground known 
as the Fort and Military reservation; such traiisfer 
to be made whenever the War Department should 
notify the commissioners of its readiness to accept 
the tender. This would still leave what is known 
as the Park in the hands of the State of Michigan. 



POSSIBLE RE-OCCUPATION OP THE FORP. 



85 



By reason of the enlargement of the army, and the 
need there will be for additional barracks and 
quarters for our soldiers, and because of the emi- 
nent fitness and suitability of the Island for an 




ONE OF THE OLD BLOCK HOUSES. 

army post it is thought the U. S. Government 
may incline to this offer, and that the old historic 
fort may again be occupied. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

It is interesting to think of the progressive 
series of industries, as pertaining to the welfare of 
man, in connection with the vast stretches of land 
in our New America. First of all was the hunting 
and trapping of the wild animals of the wilderness. 
Their flesh served the early aborigines of the 
forest for food, and their skins for clothing. But 
the Indians' operations of this kind were but a 
slight and insignificant prelude to what developed 
with the coming of the whites, particularly in our 
northern and western wilds. With their advent 
the great fur trade began. The forests and the 
soil of these millions of acres were of importance 
only as being the lairs and roaming grounds of 
those fur-bearing creatures, large and small, which 
for nearly two centuries made a great element in 
the world's commerce. Only the slightest part of 
the immense captures was availed of for food. 
The skins of the animals was the sole object sought. 
For these, great companies organized and wrought 
and developed into well nigh imperial power in the 
wilderness tracts. 

Following this era the forests themselves, so 
long the homes of the animals and the scene of 
their slaughter, became a most valuable element 
in our western settlements by the development of 
the lumber trade, connecting with human habita- 
tions and a higher form of social life. Then the 



PIONEER FUR TRADE. 87 

soil itself, which for centuries had been covered by 
these dense forests, served another end in the 
interest of man by its trees giving way to the 
plow. The last form of industrial development in 
connection with the land has to do with "the earth 
beneath. " The fur-bearing animals to a great ex 
tent gone, the forests largely a thing of the past, 
the surface of the earth occupied and tilled, the 
enterprise of man delves below and brings up the 
long hidden treasures of ore and coal and oil which 
prove such mighty factors in modern civilization. 

The fur trade was a pioneer industry in North 
America. Its agents were the first to penetrate the 
primeval wilderness in the name of commerce, and 
in this sense were the precursors of civilization. 
They made distant and perilous journeys, and 
were often the first to reveal some solitary river 
or lake or new stretch of land. Their camps and 
petty forts became the outposts of colonizers, and 
to them is largely due the earlier opening to the 
civilized world of the unknown and inhospitable 
"regions beyond." The history of the fur trade 
is thus the history of exploration and occupation, 
with its own heroes and adventures and annals. 
By stimulating hunting and turning it into a sort 
of forest labor it served to create an industry 
among the Indians, though at the same time it 
diminished the animals upon which the tribes de- 
pended for subsistence and, most unfortunately, 
introduced among them the evil of ardent spirits. 

The countries of Europe, together with our 
seaboard states, were the market fields, and from 
the whole vast regions of our Northwest, whence 



88 EARLY MACKINAC. 

now go the cargoes of grain, there then "went 
east,'' in the line of commerce, only the packs of 
peltry. The animals that were hunted for their 
fur were principally the following (as far at least 
as the more northern fields were concerned), the 
order in which they are named indicating the rela- 
tive amount of supply by the various species: 
beaver, marten (sable), musk-rat, lynx, fox, otter, 
wolf, bear, mink, deer, buffalo and racoon. Sir 
Alexander Mackenzie, writing concerning the fur 
trade in the British possessions of the Northwest, 
and probably speaking only for the one company 
which he represented (the Northwestern) re- 
ported for one year the number of furred animals 
taken as 182,000, of which 106,000 were beavers.* 
While fur-trading in America was practiced to 
some extent in the eai-ly days of the Dutch on the 
Hudson, its magnitude of operations, its longer 
continuance, its influence on governments and on 
civilization, and its romance withal, belong rather 
to the business as conducted in the western half 
of North America — more particularly in the 
Northern and Northwestern parts. From the 
earliest settlement of the French in Canada the fur 
trade ranked as of first importance. "Beaver 
skins were the life of New France," it was said. 
But the greatest development of the business was 
at the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company; a 
company chartered by King Charles II. in 1670, 
and which in process of time acquired a fur trade 
territory more than half as large as all Europe, 
extending from the Arctic circle to the Red River 
on the South, and west to the Pacific Coast. 

*Appendix H. 



THE NORTHWEST FUR COMPANY. 89 

While their territory was afterwards sold and 
transferred to the Dominion of Canada,* yet the 
Company as a business corporation has existed for 
fully two centuries and still continues its opera- 
tions, and is perhaps the earliest link now left 
connecting business interests of to-day with the 
remote past. For more than a century the great 
Company had flourished without much competition. 
Then a formidable rivalry developed. About 1787,. 
the Northwest Fur Company took shape, and be- 
came a very powerful organization, "the mighty 
Northwesters" its people were called. Washing- 
ton Irving wrote of it: *'It held a lordly sway over 
the wintry lakes and boundless forests of the 
Canadas, almost equal to that of the East India 
Company over the realms of the Orient, "f 

The principal partners resided in Montreal and 
Quebec, and constituted a commercial aristocracy, 
and in their relation to the various grades of the 
hundreds in their employ, the old feudal and fief 
idea seemed restored. Every year a delegation of 
these magnates would journey to their wilderness 
headquarters at Fort William, on the north shore 
of Lake Superior, where a conference was held 
with the inferior partners and agents from the 
various outlying trading posts. They travelled in 
large palatial canoes equipped with every con- 
venience and luxury possible, taking with them 
their own cooks and bakers, and delicacies of 
every kind , With business they combined pleasure 



*This was in 1869, when their territory of 2,300,000 square miles was 
transferred to the Canadian Government. 

fAstoria, Chapter 1. 



'90 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



in their sojourn at Fort William, and in the halls 
of the Council house regaled themselves with ban- 
quets and revels.* 

Besides having the territory of the Canadas 
for its operations, the new company stretched its 
lines indefinitely to regions beyond and, as w^as 




•r jr^' -^Y ^-r' -"'"-" "'A'^'sa 






THE RIVAL TRADERS. 

inevitable, when reaching the border lands they 
clashed in trade jealousy with the Hudson's Bay 

* "The opulence of the Lake Superior fur trade in the closing days of 
the 18th Century can be compared with the opulence of the Lake Superior 
copper trade in the closing days of tlie 19th Century." Moore's ''The 
Northwest Under Th^ee Flags." 



MACKINAC AND EARLY FUR TRADE. 91 

Co. The mutual strife and animosity were very- 
bitter and long continued. Removed far beyond 
the reach of civilization they were a Jaw unto 
themselves, and deeds of violence and slaughter 
were common. The Northwest Company in time 
extended its operations into United States terri- 
tory. Indeed, up to the beginning of the 19th 
century the whole of the fur trade in America, 
with the exception of that of the Russians in 
Alaska, was a British monopoly. We have already 
seen how slowly and reluctantly the treaty of 1783, 
as respects these northern latitudes, was recog- 
nized by the British Government. British traders 
pretended to regard all this country as still in 
some sense belonging to the throne, or at least 
that the boundary question was an open one; and 
as the conflict of 18J 2 was approaching they used 
to tell the Indians that that war would settle it. The 
war did settle it, but not as they had imagined. 
The new adjudication of the boundary question 
left it just as it had been determined by the treaty 
following the war of the revolution.* 

Michilimackinac, when a fort on the mainland, 
had from an early day been a depot for furs. The 
French military governor, or commandant, held a 
supervisory and fostering relation to the business. 
This was continued by the English when by their 
conquest of Canada their flag waved over the 
Straits. Traders established themselves within 

*Mrs. Jameson, of England, in recounting- her travels in Canada 
<1837) relates: "Colonel Talbot, (of Canada) told me that when he to k a 
map, and pointed out to one of the EJnglish Commissioners t^-e foolish 
bargain they had made, the real extent, value and resources of the coun- 
tries ceded to the United States the man covered his eyes with his 
■clenched hands, and burst into tears." 



92 EARLY MACKINAC. 

the palisades of the fort enclosure to barter with 
the Indians — cloth, beads, knives, powder and rum 
passing in exchange for the peltries brought in 
from the woods. With the removal of the fort 
from the mainland to our island of Mackinac the 
fur trade continued, though with the change from 
the custom which had prevailed before that no 
longer were the traders allowed to have their 
business, their homes, their church and their whole 
community life within the fort enclosure. They 
thus formed a settlement at the foot of the fort hill 
which developed into the village of Mackinac. 
The Mackinaw Fur Company- was formed, and 
later the Southwestern Company took shape, both 
under British control. 

The spirit of American enterprise began to 
assert itself. John Jacob Astor of New York, on 
a suggestion dropped by a chance fellow traveller 
on ship board, had made a venture in Canadian 
peltries which proved very remunerative. This 
led to his embarking further into the business. It 
was not long before he secured a controlling 
interest in both of these companies. Besides con- 
ducting operations in the regions already familiar, 
Astor sought to establish an agency on the Pacific 
coast, a venturesome and unsuccessful enterprise 
minutely described by Washington Irving in his 
'Astoria.'' The competition of the British trad- 
ers, particularly of the powerful Northwest 
Company, was found wherever Astor turned. And 
the war of 1812 naturally proved unfortunate for 
his business schemes. But his prospects were 
vastly improved at the close of the war by an act 





I. 

r 












Hk 


IV n 






4. jcHi^^SBSBts 


WV "» 




i^ m 


. sS'%^ 




'A 

•I 



THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY. 93 

of Congress which prohibited all British traders 
or companies operating in the United States. The 
Northwest Company, which had been freely so 
doing, now found its establishment in those parts 
of little worth to its business. Astor went to 
Montreal and at almost his own price bought all 
their trading posts within the limits of the United 
States. Together with its posts, the Northwest 
Company transferred many of its experienced 
agents, clerks, interpreters and boatmen. The 
rivalry between the two British Companies having 
now ceased their old strife did not long continue. 
The Hudson's Bay Companj^ and the Northwest 
settled their long-time feud by joining together, 
the latter giving up its name in that of the older 
association — the Hudson's Bay Company of two 
centuries ago. 

Astor now had a free course. The two com- 
panies, the Mackinaw and the Southwest, which 
he already controlled, were merged under the 
popular name of the American Pur Company. 
The business of the company grew and assumed 
great proportions. It had its connections and de- 
pendencies throughout the regions of the Missis- 
sippi, the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers as 
well as those nearer by. 

Mackinac Island was the company's head quar- 
ters of operation, and the little village took on an 
almost metropolitan character. It was a great 
mart of trade long before Chicago, Milwaukee or 
St. Paul had entered on their first beginnings, and 
vied with is cotemporaries Detroit and St Louis. 
The capital and enterprise on the island pertained 



94 EARLY MACKINAC. 

principally to the business of the Company. They 
furnished employment to a great number of men, 
who with their families largely contributed to the 
life of the village. In the summer, when for several 
.weeks the agents and voyageurs (or canoe men) 
and the engages of different kinds gathered in from 
the widely scattered hunting and trading grounds 
of Ihe wilderness, they made, together with the 
local contingent employed the year through, a 
force of some twenty-five hundred men, all repre- 
senting the work of the great organization. The 
Company's warehouses, stores, offices and boat 
yards occupied much of the town plat. The 
present summer hotel, The John Jacob Astor, was 
originally built for their business, furnishing 
quarters for the housing of their men, particularly 
at the great summer gatherings, and also ware- 
rooms where the peltries were weighed and packed 
and kept in storage. 

The American Fur Company continued to 
flourish at Mackinac for a period of some twenty 
years. In 1834 Mr. Astor sold his interest, and 
the business declined. At length the Company 
withdrew entirely from the island, and for the re- 
mainder of its career was simply an agency for 
handling furs in New York. Our island, in a com- 
mercial and social point of view, suffered greatly 
by this change. A considerable element of the 
population removed. Business fell off, though to 
an extent revived by the development of the 
fishery interests. The old warehouses and other 
quarters of the Company, once the scene of activity 
and bustle, stood only as mute witnesses to a 



OLD DOCUMENTS. 



95 



former life until removed or reconstructed and put 
to other uses. Some of these buildings were de- 
positories of old papers, account books, letters, 
memoranda, etc., of the defunct Company which, 
of no business value, had been left in closets and 




AMERICAN FUR CO. OLD DESK. 

attic chests. The new owners of the buildings 
at length felt indisposed to longer give them 
"house room" and after more than a generation 
had passed, several large packing boxes,'filled with 
these old documents, were opened and freely dis- 
posed of to any of the village people who cared to 
take them away. The historic or memorial interest 



m 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



not then being very strong, the papers were used 
in various ways, such as lighting fires or putting 
them around the garden cabbage plants as protec- 
tion against the cut- worm or a summer frost, and 
in the kitchens of the good house-wives they were 
serving to line cake-tins with. 

In 1863, and again in 1870, portions of these 




AMERICAN FUR CO. OLD SCALES. 

old papers and record books, which by that time 
had become interesting relics, were rescued by 
an enthusiastic lady visitor on the island, and pre- 
sented to the Chicago Historical Society. In the 
great fire which swept over that city in 1871, these 
collections were destroyed. In the Astor House 
on the island there are two large copy-volumes of 
letters written from the Company's office at 



AMERICAN FUR COMPANY RELICS. 97 

Mackinac, and dating from a period the most 
flourisliing in its history. These old books in- 
terest many of the summer guests to-day. Also 
belonging to the same Hotel, and preserved as 
relics, are an old fashioned high-legged desk at 
which one of the clerks used to work in the Com- 
pany's palmy days, and an old-style scales 
or "balances," which was used in weighing the 
peltries as they were packed and bound for storage 
or for shipment. 



CHAPTER IX. 

In the early days, even as in the present, the 
time of greatest stir and animation on the island 
was the summer season. Large companies of 
Indians from all quarters about the upper lakes 
would gather here. They came for the annuities 
from the government agent, and for trade and 
excitement — their wigwams lining up on the beach, 
two and three rows deep, their light canoes 
skimming the water or, with bottom turned up, 
resting on the pebbly shore. In some seasons as 
many as three thousand were present. Their un- 
restrained indulgence in liquor and their war 
dances and rude sport, added to all the so-called 
pleasurings of the Fur Company's voyageurs and 
trappers from the distant woods, made the island 
for a few weeks a constant scene of wildness. 
The hill-side fort, however, with its soldiers and 
frowning cannon had a salutary influence, while 
the business which the season brought to the mer- 
chants and the Indian traders probably served to 
relieve the situation. 

The Indians were often but as babes in com- 
mercial transactions; and it is told of a certain 
settlement of them in the Grand Traverse region, 
that coming to the island at such times they were 
often accompanied by their missionary, the Rev. 
Mr. Dougherty, a Presbyterian minister, who 
would pitch his tent among them during their 
stay, not only to guard their morals but to protect 



> 
n 

> 

n 

w 

o 
;> 
:^ 

D 

o 

o 




L.ofC. 



A CLASS OF SUMMER VISITORS. 99 

at]d assist them, as best he might, in their dealings 
with the traders.* 

Another class of summer "tourists'' and visit- 
ors on the island were the Fur Company's men 
who would come in brigades of canoes with their 
collections of furs from the different trading posts 
in the wilderness, extending from the line of the 
British dominion in the north to the Missouri in the 
west, and to the south unto the confines of the white 
settlements. When all were thus assembled they 
added largely, for several weeks, to the white popu- 
lation of the village. About five hundred of them 
would be quartered in the company's barracks, and 
others camped in tents or were accommodated in the 
houses of the islanders. Joviality and f rollicking 
and carousals were the order of the day among 
these light-hearted and improvident men who in a 
few summer weeks, amid the scenes of unaccus- 
tomed social life, would throw away their hard- 
earned wages of ten months toil in the desolate 
wilds. As the early autumn approached they 
would gather the materials of another outfit, load 
their canoes, wave their good-byes and dipping 



*As illustrating the obscurity and confusion attending- an Indian's 
reasoning powers in business matters, Schoolcraft relates the following 
"claim" subiuitted to himself when Indian agent at Mackinac by a certain 
old Ottawa chief: At one time a trader had taken from him forty beavers; 
at another time thirty beavers and bears; at another, ten beavers; and at 
another, thirty beavers and four carcasses of beavers, for all which he had 
received no pay although promised it. Also, he had once served as a 
clerk or sub-trader for a merchant, for which he was to receive $500, and 
never got a cent of it. All this itemized "bill" he requested the President 
of the United States to pay! On inquiry it was found that the skins were 
sold, and the service rendered, and the wrong received some thirty or 
forty years before at Athabasca Lake, in the Hudson's Bay Territory, and 
far beyond the President's jurisdiction. 



100 EARLY MACKINAC. 

their paddles to the rhythm of their boat- songs, 
gaily moTe off for another campaign in the distant 
regions of the wilderness. 

These men were a class of their own. They 
were principally French Canadians, often with a 
mixture of Indian blood, who loved the free life of 
the water and the wilderness, and chafed under the 
restraints of settled society. Some of them in an 
earlier period had been known as Couriers des bois, 
— rangers of the woods. Of the same light-hearted, 
reckless and daring spirit they had been men of 
a little more responsibility than the ordinary 
engague. They were a kind of pedlars or sub- 
merchants on a small scale. Three or four would 
join their stock, put all in a canoe which they 
worked themselves, and push out into the wilder- 
ness to hunt and trap, and to barter with the 
Indians for furs, and after twelve or fifteen months 
absence in the woods would return with rich car- 
goes, squander all their gains and then go back 
penniless to their favorite mode of life. They 
have been described as ''grown lip babes of the 
woods, ' ' on whom the dense and quiet forest tracts 
exercised, a subtle fascination; and who felt the en- 
ticements of fur hunting much the same as our 
pioneer roving miners would feel the passion of 
gold hunting.* Later, however, when the great 
fur companies controlled all this business there 
was little scope for these petty dealers, and the 
men of that t^^pe of life merged into the class 
known as voyageurs. The voyageurs were canoe 

*"The hardy, adventurous, lawless, fascinating fur trade".— Park- 
man's '■^The Old Rtgimt in Canada^ 




Pi 2 

< ^ 

^ 6 

< I 

^ I 

W § 

O I 

<J 1 

a o 

o -^ 

S i 

3 I 

u =^ 

c^ f 

^ g 

p I 

o - 



CANOEMEN AND THEIR CANOES. 101 

men who handled the boats and worked them up 
the rapids in rivers and over portages. They were 
rough and bold and often as intractable as the 
Indians themselves, but of a cheerful and merry- 
disposition*, devoid of ambition and contented un- 
der the privatations and hardship of their life. 
Their food on their journeys was *'lyed" corn, a 
sort of hominy, and salt pork, or in the absence of 
pork an allowance of tallow. This was greatly 
relished and gave them strength for their toils, 
better it is said than a diet of bread and fresh meat.f 
The canoes used on these expeditions were 
fashioned on the model of the Indian canoe. 
They were made of birch-bark strippings a quarter 
of an inch in thickness sewed together with fibres 
of spruce and made water-tight by hot pitch poured 
over the seams, The bark thus seamed together 
was stretched over thin ribs and cross bars of 
cedar. It was claimed that the white man had 
never been able to improve upon the original 
Indian idea. As intended for trading purposes 
the canoes were often of great size, thirty or forty 
feet long and four to five feet wide. The ends 
were of gondola shape and often decorated with 
rude and gaudy paintings. They could carry be- 
sides the crew of eight or ten men, four tons of 
freight, and yet in their construction were very 

*The fiddle was a part of their camp outfit. They carried with them 
into the wilderness and wherever they went their 'melodies of the river, 
the chase, love and wassail."—" IVisconsin Collections,'" Vol. 14. 

"Gay curtains, bright colored prints and always a violin," writes 
Miss Fenimore Woolson in her short story "Jeannette," in which, as 
well as in "Anne," she pictures life among this people as known in Macki- 
nac Island long ago. 



102 EARLY MACKINAC. 

light and easily handled. These boats penetrated 
the recesses of the wilderness, not only following 
the rivers and every inlet, but ''making a port- 
age," as it was called, passing across land from 
one water highway to another. The portages 
were made by unloading the boat which then (so 
light was its structure) could easily be carried on 
the shoulders of two of the men, while the packs of 
freight were sti-apped on the backs of the others.* 
Thus loaded the cavalcade would march through 
thickets and swamps and over hills to the next 
sheet of water. 

In the water the canoes were propelled, gener- 
ally, by paddles made of the light red cedar, though 
in favorable winds a square sail might be hoisted. 
Later the American Fur Co. introduced oars. The 
rate of travel would average forty miles a day. 
After the fur trade declined and there was less call 
for the old lines of work, but more canoe journey- 
ing of a general kind, many of the old voyageur 
class became "masters of transportation" as it 
were, and "public carders", on the upper lakes in 
the days before steam navigation had fully devel- 
oped its lines. The men were experts with the 
paddle, and capable of prolonged steady work, and 
the records sometimes made were astonishing. 
They could easily maintain a speed of four miles 
per hour for the whole day. Col. McKenney tells 
of thus journeying on these lakes in 1826, when 
his men had been one day paddling constantly 

*Of the smaller sized bark canoes— they were so light that after be- 
ing unburdened the person who was the last to step out could take it by 
one of the thin ribs that crossed it luidway and walk out with it upon the 
shore as if it were a basket. 



TOILING AND SINGING. 103 

since three o'clock in tlie morning. At sunset he 
proposed they go ashore for the night. But they 
assured him they were still fresh, and they con- 
tinued at work until half past nine o'clock, which 
made a journey for the day of seventy-nine miles. 
While forty strokes a minute was a common rate 
of speed, they were capable of sixty, he says, and 
they placed the paddles in the water and took 
them out as noiselessly as if it had been oil. No 
duck moved on the surface of the water "with 
greater buoyancy or stillness, than do these birch- 
en canoes. ' ' The motion was often accompanied by 
the notes of the Canadian boat songs sung by the 
crew, the measure and cadence of which would 
tally with the propelling strokes — 

"Faintly as tolls 

The evening chime, 
Our voices keep tune 
And our oars keep time."* 

So charmed was the Colonel by his experiences 
in the canoe that he adopted as his own the senti- 
ments of another enthusiast who had * 'dropped 
into poetry" on the subject— a few stanzas of 
which we venture to quote, admirable as a tribute 
at least if not of the highest poetic merit : 



*lsaac Weld, an English traveler in Canada, 1795-1797, describing 
his canoejouruey tells of one instance when the men v/erekept at the pad- 
dles all night; and notwithstanding they had labored hard during the day, 
'they plied as vigorously as if they had just set out, singing merrily the 
whole time. The French Canadians have a good ear for music, and sing 
with tolerable accuracy. They have one favorite song among them called 
'the rowing duet,' which as they sing they mark time to with each stroke 
of the oar; indeed, when rowing in smooth water, they mark the time of 
most of the airs they sing In the same manner." The singing, it was said, 
enabled them to paddle more steadily and keep better time. 



104 EARLY MACKINAC. 

"In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep 

Our beautiful fabric was built; 
Light cedar supported its weight in the deep, 
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt. 

"Its rim was with tender young roots woven round, 

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare; 
And it press'd on the waves with as lightsome a bound 
As a basket suspended in air. 

"The heavens in their brightnsss and glory below 

Were reflected quite plain to the view, 
And it moved like a swan — with as graceful a show, 
Our beautiful birchen canoe. 

"Oh, long will we think of those silver bright lakes, 
And the scene they exposed to our view; 
Our friends — and the wishes we formed for their sakes, 
And our bright yellow birchen canoe," 

Mrs. Jameson, from whom I have already quot- 
ed, and must yet more before this book is finished, 
describes her canoe jouraey through the Georgian 
Bay, made about ten years subsequent to McKen- 
ney's. "The Roman Emperor," she says, 'Vho 
proclaimed a reward for the discovery of a new 
pleasure ought to have made a voyage down Lake 
.Huron in a birch bark canoe. " In her party there 
were two canoes, each twenty-five feet long and 
four feet in width, "tapering to the two extremi- 
ties, and light, elegant and bouyant as the sea-mew 
when it skims the summer waves. " Her voyageiirs 
were Canadian half-breeds, "young, well-looking, 
full of glee and good nature, with untiring arms 
and more untiring lungs and spirits," and showii g 
toward herself "a never failing galla^iterie.'' Their 
singing of the Canadian boat songs was very ani- 



BORROWED DESCRIPTIONS. 105 

mated on the water and in the open air. They all 
sang in unison, raising their voices and marking 
the time with their paddles. Their progress over 
the water "was measured by pipes." At the end 
of a certain time there is a pause, *'and they light 
their pipes and smoke for about five minutes, then 
the paddles go off merrily again at the rate of about 
fifty strokes in a minute and we absolutely seem to 
fly over the water. 'Trois pipes' are about twelve 
miles.''* She was often amused by a specimen of 
dexterity on the part of her good natured cavalier 
men of the paddle "like that of an accomplished 
whip in London. They would paddle up toward 
the shore with such velocity that I expected to be 
dashed on the rock, and then in a moment, by a 
simultaneous back-stroke of the paddle, stop with 
a jerk, which made me breathless. " 

Another graphic canoeing picture of those 
times is given by H. H. Bancroft in the "North 
West Coast" of his series, "History of the Pacific 
States." It was as the voya^eurs approached the 
end of their journey, he says, that they merged 
into their gayest mood. An elaborate toilet 
was made; men and boats were decorated with rib- 
bons, tassels and gaudy feathers; the chanson a 
Vaviron (song of the oar) was struck and the 
plaintive paddling melody, which the distant list- 

*"A French Canadian is scarcely ever without a pipe in his mouth, 
whether working at the oar or plough, whether on foot, or on horseback; 
indeed, so much addicted are the people to smoking that by the burning 
of the tobacco in their pipes they commonly ascertain the distance from 
one place to another. 'Such a place,' they say, 'is three pipes off' — it is 
that far that j'ou can smoke three pipes oi tobacco in walking to it." — 
Isaac Weld, in his ''Travels Through the States of North America and 
Provinces of Canada in i~gS, '96, and '97." 



106 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ener might almost fancy to be the very voice of 
mountain, wood, and stream united, swelled on 
nearer approach into a hymn of manly exultation, 
and with flourish of paddle keeping time to song 
and chorus they swept round bend or point, and 
landed with a whoop and wild halloo. He de- 
scribes it as a brilliant and stirring scene to * 'stand 
upon the bank and witness the arrival of a brigade 
of light canoes, dashing up with arrow-swiftness 
to the very edge of the little wharf; then, like a 
Mexican with his mustang, coming to a sudden 
stop, accomplished as if by miracle by backing water 
simultaneously, each with his utmost strength then 
rolling their paddles all together on the gunwale, 
shake from their bright vermilion blades a shower 
of spray, from which the rowers lightly emerge as 
from a cloud." 

Or let us take one more description of this 
* 'homing" scene from the same writer: "forty or 
sixty of these fantastically painted boats rushing 
through the water at reindeer speed under a cloud 
of flying spray toward their last landing, while in 
the breast of every tugging oarsman there were 
twenty caged hozannas which, rising faintly at 
first, were poured in song upon the breeze from 
five hundred tremulous tongues until finally^ 
breaking all control, they would burst forth in 
one loud, long peal of triumphant joy."* 

*As giving some idea of the extent of this kind of navigation, we are 
told that in the palmy days of the Northwest Fur Company not less than 
ten brigades, of twenty canoes each, used to pass and repass every sum- 
mer, between Montreal and Fort William on L,ake Superior carrying sup- 
plies to the upper country and returning with furs. 

♦Appendix I. 



CHAPTER X. 

In the year 1822 there occured on the island 
an event which became famous in the annals of 
physiology and of medical experiment, both in 
this country and throughout Europe. This was 
the incident of Alexis St. Martin, who was acci- 
dentally wounded while handling a shot gun, and 
his treatment by Dr. Wm.. Beaumont, the Post Sur- 
geon. The accident happened in the retail store 
room of the American Fur Company. The room 
still stands; a basement or ground floor, a strong 
stone structure, over which was a second story 
built of logs. This upper story w^as afterwards 
removed, and an attractive white frame' cottage 
with dormer windows is now to be seen built on 
the same high foundation walls which then made 
the store room. The building is situated near the 
foot of the Port hill, on the corner of the street. 

St. Martin was a young French Canadian in 
the employ of the American Fur Co. Mr. Gurdon 
S. Hubbard, a pioneer citizen of Chicago, at that 
time a young man living on the island, and present 
in the room when the accident occured, thys wrote 
of it in his autobiography, published in 1 888 : 
"One of the party was holding a shot gun which 
was accidentally discharged, the whole charge 
entering St. Martin's body. The muzzle was not 
over three feet from him ; I think, not over two. 
The wadding entered, as w^ell as pieces of his 

107 



lOS EARLY MACKINAC. 

clothing; his shirt took fire; he fell, as we sup- 
posed, dead." 

The shot had entered his side and perforated 
his stomach. Dr. Beaumont was immediately 
called and undertook the treatment of the wound. 
In his report of the case, he says he found "a por- 
tion of the lung as large as a turkey's egg protrud- 
ing from the external wound, lacerated and burnt, 
and immediately below this another protrusion, 
which proved to be a portion of the stomach, lac- 
erated through all its coats and pouring out the 
food he had takeu for his breakfast.'' 

The man was healed and rounded out a good 
period of life. He became the father of a family 
and was able to serve in different forms of manual 
labor. Dr. Beaumont kept him in his employ long 
after he was healed for the purpose of conducting 
his valuable experiments, and at different inter- 
vals during a period of eleven years, at Fort Mack- 
inac and at other army posts where he was sta- 
tioned as surgeon, he made him the subject of 
pains taking study in the interest of medical science. 
He afterwards published a book detailing the whole 
case. The orifice into the stomach, about two and 
a half inches long, did not close up, and thus 
through it as through a window (the man lying 
on his b^ck as he took his food) Beaumont studied 
the processes of digestion, and the nature of the 
gastric juice — which he would extract through the 
aperture and then analyze and make experiments 
with. His range of experiments, covering nearly 
every article of food, afforded opportunity of de- 
termining^ the variations in their digestibility. 



FIRST CASE OF ITS KIND. 109 

And in his observations on St. Martin, who was 
not always in an amiable mood when thus behig 
diagnosed (having to lie on his back while eating 
and sometimes required, "in the interest of science, " 
to fast from twelve to eighteen hours) the Doctor 
noted the fact that anger and impatience retarded, 
or checked entirely, the digestive process! 

The poor fellow was often irritable, not only 
as being the subject of these scientific experiments 
in which it is likely he had not himself the slight- 
est interest (albeit it heralded his name through- 
out the medical world) but because also he was 
subject to the jibes of the populace. They called 
him "the man with the lid on his stomach" and 
made sport of him, and he was often provoked to 
resent their jeers in hot blood, with warnings to 
the Doctor about "giving up his job," and on one 
or two occasions peremptorily doing so. The sur- 
geon had need of all his patience and tact in deal- 
ing with his interesting "study." 

It was the first opportunity ever offered of an 
ocular examination of the interior of the human 
stomach in the moments of its functional work. 
During an examination, Dr. Beaumont says: "St. 
Martin swallowed part of a glass of water, and, 
being in a strong light, favorable to an internal 
view through the aperture, I distinctly saw the 
water pass into the cavity of the stomach through 
the cardiac orifice, a circumstance, perhaps, never 
before witnessed in a living subject. On taking 
repeated draughts of water, w^hile in this position, 
it would gush out at the aperture the instant it 
passed through the cardia. Food swallowed in 



no 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



this position could be distinctly seen to enter the 
stomach." 

Thus, he tells us in the preface of the book, 
"the secretions and operations of the stomach have 
been submitted to my observation in a very extra- 
ordinaiy manner, in a state of perfect health and 




DR. WM. BEAUMONT. 

for years in succession;*' that the case presented 
*'a concurrence of circumstances which probably 
can never again occur, " and furnished "a body of 
facts which can not be invalidated." 

The publication of Beaumont's book was an 



A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE. Ill 

event of great note in the medical world. Dr. S. 
C. Ayers of Cincinnati in a paper on the subject 
read before the Academy of Medicine of that city, 
January 1899, says : "All writers and teachers on 
physiology, English, French and German as well 
as Americans, have acknowledged their indebted- 
ness to Beaumont for placing an obscure and 
doubtful subject on a well-founded basis of facts 
derived from his extended and critical obser- 
vations;" and that "up to the present day the 
book is quoted, and always will be.'.' 

Dr. Beaamont afterwards lived in St. Louis, 
Mo., a leading man in his profession until his 
death in 1853. A certain street in that city bears 
his name to-day, while a higher and worthier 
tribute to his memory in that community is the 
Beaumont Hospital Medical College. The medical 
societies of Michigan (the Upper Peninsula and 
the State societies) have placed a memorial stone 
in the Mackinac fort grounds beside the old stone 
quarters where the surgeon dwelt when an officer 
of the post, and where the experiments in the case 
were first conducted. The inscription on the stone 
reads: 

"Near this spot Dr. William Beaumont, U. S. 
A., made his experiments upon Alexis St. Martin, 
which brought fame to himself and honor to 
American medicine. " 

The village at that period contained about 
four hundred and fifty permanent inhabitants. 
Their chief occupation was fishing in summer and 
hunting in winter. The community had an an- 



112 EARLY MACKINAC. 

tique and foreign style of its own — the Indian with 
his plumes and his bright and decorated costume, 
the Canadian rover thoughtless, bent on the pres- 
ent and heedless of to-morrow, and the petty trader, 
habituated to the woods and only temporarily in 
the haunts of men. The French language, or 
rather that known as "Canadian French", was 
chiefly spoken. Society was of diverse elements. 
The original stock was based on the old French 
and Indian mixture — the descendants of the canoe 
men and trappers and clerks and interpreters who 
had generally married Indian women. Gurdon 
Hubbard, already referred to, describing the sit- 
uation as it was in the early twenties, said there 
were not more than twelve white women on the 
island, the residue of the female population being 
either all or part Indian. For a time daring the 
British dominion an English element figured, but 
this seemed to withdraw after the island changed 
its sovereignty. An Irish element then appeared 
and continued, founding itself to some extent on 
intermarriage with the natives. In the flourish- 
ing period of the Fur Company the social life of 
the island was perhaps at its best development. 
It was represented by the magnates and factors of 
that Company, by the military circle of the fort, 
by the Government officials of the civil service as 
connected with the Custom-house and with the 
Indian affairs, by the company of teachers in the 
work of the Mission school then maintained, and 
by the families of the merchants and leading trad- 
-ers. 



MODERN MACKINAC. 113 

Like the rest of the world our island shows 
its changes and improvements since that day of 
primitive conditions. Large and luxurious steam 
vessels, mooring within immense dock slips, have 
succeeded to the canoes which once lined the pebbly 
shores. The picturesque wigwams and birch-bark 
huts and rude barrack quarters of the former "re- 
sorters" have given way to the modern hotel and 
boarding home and to the numerous and diversi- 
fied cottages, peopled by another type of season 
visitors. A different class, indeed, but still the 
real successors are we of the Indians and of the old 
Pur Company trappers and boatmen who were wont 
to gather here, summer after summer, in the days 
of early Mackinac. Carriages and equipages of 
every description pass swiftly over roads where 
formerly wheeled vehicles and horses were un- 
known, and when dog-trains and winter sledges 
and a few ox carts in the hill woods comprised al- 
most the total of animal draught power. A boule- 
vard drive-way along the beach, designed to en- 
circle the whole island, is in course of construc- 
tion. Water works and electric lighting and the 
telephone system are among the present conven- 
iences of the old-time village. The large State 
Park, embracing nearly one-half the woods of the 
island, and threaded by the best of roads, and a 
thing of State guardianship and care, is another 
modern feature. And the project of a beautiful 
little park, at the foot of thei fort and in the cur- 
rent of the village life, adorned by a memorial 
statue of the early missionary and explorer, Mar- 
quette, whose name the park will bear, has been 



1J4 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



initiated. These are some of the changes, but in 
its natural beauty, its purity of atmosphere, its 
surrounding panorama of mighty waters, and in 
all that makes its subtle charm and spell, the is- 
land is the same as of yore, and beyond the power 



1^f 


T. --Sf- .T W . 




- ^^^ 




- ^j3i* S H| 


■'t^^ 


^^^^ 


shh 


■C^^F 


/'^i^^ 


nn^l 


tW'' -^^ 




M 


i ' J^ly'^^-A,-...- WrS^^'h^StBm 




I^B^^^H 


i ■gSuB^^^^'i\ ' ^^^^^^^tmJw 




^^^H^^H 


^ 'w^^^'^r^^ilff 




^■H 


if . -^^^^^^^^^fln 




HHi 


* ^ i^^^%!^^^j^ ^'^^g^l 




^^H^^H 


* ' ^^^*F I*^*^^l$* ' ^R^l 




^^^^^B 


f; '^ -"^ " '\^M'^m 




^■I^^H 


v; ",.^^m 




H^H 


'i'; "'4^^W^1 




■BH 


|iil' ^^HhjI 




^^H 


Mi ^^ ''' ^^H^lUI 




H^^H 


'^' ''^^j 




bH 


i^>* Mtm 




HH 


' 'fl^H 


Sfcm'^ i 


H^B 


.^'■^^H 




IBbE 



THE VISTA PATH. 

of man's enterprise to change or improve. It is a 
small tract of Jand not subject to the prevailing 
conditions of other communities, and to an un- 
usual degree it preserves its pristine character. 



AN OLD-TIME PREDICTION 115 

The following, written by a reflecting visitor 
many years ago, when the aborigines were still 
lingering in the neighborhood of the island, and 
when modern life was in its "day of small things," 
may well be repeated now. The prediction 'it 
contains is seen to-day, at any rate, and doubtless 
will long continue to be realized: "The Straits of 
Mackinac will always command attention. Through 
this channel will pass, for ages to come, a great 
current of commerce, and its shores will be en- 
livened with civilized life where at present the 
Indian still lingers, but alas! is fast passing 
away. " 



CHAPTER XI. 

Early Mackinac had among its citizens, sparse 
though its population was, a number of men of 
strong character and great business enterprise. 
Among them, not to speak of all, were Micliael 
Dousman, John Dousman, Edward Biddle, Gurdon 
S. Hubbard, Samuel Abbot and Ambrose Daven- 
port. John Dousman, Abbott and Davenport were 
the deputation of three gentlemen referred to by 
Lieut. Hanks, in his report of the surrender of the 
fort, as having accompanied the flag of truce in the 
negotiations between Captain Roberts and himself. 
After the English came into possession, the citizens 
were required to take the oath of allegiance to the 
king. Of those then living on the island, five are 
reported as refusing to do this — Messrs. Daven- 
port, Bostwick, Stone, and the two Dousmans.^ 
With the exception of Michael Dousman, who was 
permitted to remain neutral, they were obliged to 
leave their homes and their property until the 
close of the war. Besides these, there were after- 
wards three men in particular who figured in large 
si^heres, and were in reputation in other parts of 
the land as well as in this remote wilderness point. 
These were Ramsey Crooks, Robert Stuart and 
Henry R. Schoolcraft. 

Mr. Crooks came to America from Scotland, as 
a young man. His career was an active and 

116 *Biddle and Hubbard were not then residents of the island. Biddle 
was a brother of Nicholas Biddle of Bank fame in Jackson's time. 



RAMSEY CROOKS. 117 

Stirring one. He was known in connection with 
the fur trade, it is said, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. His business involved much of perilous 
journeying and startling adventure in the north 
and in the far west. He was with Hunt's expedition 
across the Rocky Mountains and to the Pacific 
coast, as far back as 1811, and again the next year 
he made the same overland journey back to the 
East. He was an educated, intelligent man, well 
experienced in human nature, and highly rated for 
his judgment, his enterprise and his integrity. 
He was one of Mr. Astor's right hand men in the 
extensive business of the fur company. In the 
American expedition against the island in 1814, in 
the attempt to dislodge the English, he, together 
with Davenport and John Dousman, had ac- 
companied the squadron — the latter two as expatri- 
ated citizens, well acquainted with the waters, to 
help as guides; and Crooks to w^atch, as far as he 
could, the interests of Mr. Astor.* He did not 
make Mackinac his permanent residence during the 
whole time of his connection with the business, 
but was more or less on the island and engaged in 
its office work. New York, afterwards, was his 
home; and on Astor's selling out, he became chief 
proprietor and the president of the company. It is 
said of him that he concentrated, in his remi- 
niscences, the history of the fur trade in America 
for forty years. He died in New York in 1859. 



*Schoolcraft speaking of Davenport, (who, he says, was a Virginian), 
refers to his thus '-sailing about the island and in sight of his own 
home."' He remarks, too, that for his sufferings and losses, he ought 
to have been remunerated by the Government. 



118 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Robert Stuart was also a native of Scotland. 
born in 1784. He came to America at the age of 
twenty -two years, and illustrated the same spirit of 
enterprise and adventure. He first lived in Mon- 
treal, and served with the Northwestern Fur Co. 
In 1810 he connected himself, together with his 
uncle, David Stuart, with Mr. Astor's business, 
and was one of the party that sailed from New 
York by the ship "Tonquin" to found the fur trade 
city of Astoria, on the Pacific Coast. In 1812, it 
being exceedingly important thst certain papers 
and dispatches be taken from Astoria to New 
York, and the ship in the meantime being destroy- 
ed, and there being no way of making the trip by 
sea, Stuart was put at the head of a party to under- 
take the journey overland. Ramsey Crooks was 
one of the band. This trip across the mountains 
and through the country of wild Indians, and over 
arid plains, involved severe hardships and peril, 
and illustrated the nerve, and vigor, and resources 
of the young leader. The party was nearly a year 
on the way. In 1817 be came to Mackinac and be- 
came a resident partner of the American Fur 
Company, and superintendent of its entire business 
in the west. He was remarkably energetic in 
business, a leader among men, and a conspicuous 
and forceful character w^herever he might be 
placed. In the lack of hotel accommodations his 
home was constantly giving hos]Ditable welcome 
and entertainment to visiting strangers. He dwelt 
on the island for seventeen years, and when the 
company sold out in 1834, removed to Detroit. He 
was afterw^ard appointed by the Government as 



ROBERT STUART. 119 

Indian Commissioner for all the tribes of the north- 
west, and guarded their i)iterests with paternal 
care. The Indians used to speak of him as theii 
best friend. He also served as State treasurer, 
and at the expiration of his term of office was 
trustee and secretary of the Illinois and Michigan 
Canal Board. ActiA^e in great commercial and 
public interests, he was also, subsequent to his 
conversion on the island in 1828, zealous and prom- 
nent in church work and always bore a high 
Christian character. He died very suddenly at 
Chicago, in 1848. His body was taken by a vessel 
over the lakes to Detroit for burial. In passing 
Mackinac the boat laid awhile at the dock, and all 
the people of the village paid their respects to the 
dead body of one who had been in former years a 
resident of the island, so well known and so greatly 
esteemed. 

In connection with the Fur Company work of 
the island, which these two men did so much to 
promote, it may be well to quote from Mrs. John 
Kinzie, the wife of a Chicago pioneer, who with 
her husband was here in 1830. In her interesting 
book "Wau-Bun, the 'Early Day' in the North- 
west," she thus writes, speaking of that period: 
"These were the palmy days of Mackinac. It was 
no unusual thing to see a hundred or more canoes 
of Indians at once approaching the island, laden 
with their articles of traffic; and if to these was 
added the squadron of large Mackinaw boats con- 
stantly arriving from the outposts with the furs, 
peltries and buffalo robes collected by the distant 
traders, some idea may be formed of the extensive 



120 EARLY MACKINAC. 

operations and the important position of the 
American Fur Company, as well as of the vast 
circle of human beings either immediately or re- 
motely connected with it. " 

Henry R, Schoolcraft lived on the island from 
1833 to 1841. He was a native of the State of New 
York. He was a student, an investigator into the 
facts and phenomena of nature, a remarkable 
linguist, a great traveler and explorer, and a 
prolific writer. He was given to archaeological 
researches; he explored the valley of the 
Mississippi; he investigated the mineral resources 
of much of the west, particularly of Missouri; and 
he discovered the source of the Mississippi river. 
His great work, and by which he is most known, 
was that in connection with the Indian race, having 
spent thirty years of his life in contact with them. 
Besides his travels among the tribes throughout 
the west and northwest, where his pursuits led 
him, he was the Government agent in Indian affairs^ 
first at Sault Ste. Marie for eleven, years, and then 
at Mackinac for eight years. He mentions that 
at one time over four thousand Indians were en- 
camped along the shores of the island for a month; 
and that the annuities he paid that year amounted 
to 1370,000 in money and goods. He also served 
in the negotiation of treaties for the Government 
with the tribes. While living at the Sault, he 
married a half-blood Indian girl. Her father, Mr. 
John Johnston, was an Irish gentleman of good 
standing, who, dwelling in the wilderness countr^^ 
of Lake Superior, had found a wife in the daughter 
of an Indian Chief. This daughter. Miss Johnston, 



HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 



121 



had been sent to Europe while a young girl to be- 
educated under the care of her father's relatives, 
and she became a refined and cultivated Christian 
lady. 

Mr. Schoolcraft in his eight years' residence 
on the island, lived in the house known to alL 




HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL D. 

readers of Miss Woolson's *'Anne" as the "Old 
Agency." Rewrites on his arrival: "We found 
ourselves at ease in the rural and picturesque 
grounds and domicile of the United States Agency, 
overhung, as it is, by impending cliffs and com- 
manding one of the most pleasing and captivating: 



122 EARLY MACKINAC. 

views of lake scenery/** Every subject of scien- 
tific interest, all the physical phenomena of the 
island, and its antiquities and historic features, and 
all questions pertaining to the Indians and their 
race characteristics, their habits and customs, their 
language, their traditions and legends, their 
religion, and especially all that might lead to their 
moral and social improvement — these were matters 
of his constant study. At the same time he kept 
abreast of the general literature of the day, read- 
ing the books of note as they appeared and himself 
making contributions to literature by his own 
books and review articles and treatises, which 
were published in the East and in England. In his 
remote island home, ice-bound for half the year 
and largely shut out from the world, he was yet 
well known by his writings in the highest circles of 
learning. Visitors of note, from Europe as well as 
from the Eastern States, coming to the island, were 
frequently calling at his house with letters of intro- 
duction. He was voted a complimentary member- 
ship in numerous scientific, historical and antiqua- 
rian societies, both in this country and in the old 
world. He had correspondents among scholars 
and savants of the highest rank. His opinions and 
views on subjects of which he had made a study 
were greatly prized. The eminent Sir Humphrey 
Davy, of England, for instance, expressed the 
highest appreciation of certain contributions of 
scientific interest which Mr. Schoolcraft had pre- 



*In the minds of some now living on the island he has been confused 
■with his brother, James Schoolcraft, who also lived in the village and 
was murdered by a John Tanner, in 1846-as then generally supposed. 



HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 123 

pared in his island home; and Charles Darwin, in 
his work, '^The Descent of Man," quotes with ap- 
proval some opinion he had expressed, and calls 
him "a most capable judge. " Prof. Silliman, also 
ex-Presidents John Adams, Thos. Jefferson and 
James Madison, wrote him letters of marked ap- 
probation respecting a contribution he had written 
for the American Geological Society. Bancroft 
conferred with him before writing those parts of 
his "History of the United States," which pertain 
to the Indians, and was in frequent correspondence 
with him; and Longfellow, in his Hiawatha Indian 
notes, expresses his sense of obligation to him. 
Some of Schoolcraft's lectures were translated into 
French, and a prize was awarded him by the National 
Institute of France. Among his frequent corres- 
pondents, as he was an active Christian and in 
sympathy with all church interests, were the 
secretaries of different missionary societies in the 
East, seeking his opinion and his counsel in refer- 
ence to the location of stations and the methods of 
work among the Indian tribes. The amount of 
literary work he accomplished was remarkable, 
especially in view of his public services, which 
often required extensive journeys in distant wilder- 
ness regions, and much of camp life. He was of 
remarkable physical vigor and industry, however, 
and it is said of him, that he had been known to 
write from sun to sun almost every day for many 
years. 

Mr. Schoolcraft removed from the island to 
New York in 1841, and after an extensive travel 
through Europe, devoted himself principally to 



124 EARLY MACKINAC. 

literary work. He published about thirty different 
books. These largely pertained to his explorations, 
and to scientific subjects. The chief products of 
bis pen in respect to the Indians were his "Algic 
Researches, " and later his very extensive "Ethno- 
logical Researches among the Red Men," which 
was prepared under the direction and patronage of 
Congress. It is in six large volumes with over 
300 colored engravings, and was issued in the best 
style of the printer's art. It is a thesaurus of in- 
formation, and furnishes the most complete and 
authentic treatment the subject has ever received. 
For nearly twenty years Mr. Schoolcraft lived at 
Washington, and died there in December, 1864. 
The Rev. Dr. Sunderland, for over forty years a 
Presbyterian pastor in that city, has said of him: 
''He was a noble Christian man, and his last years 
were spent in tlie society of his friends and among 
his books " * a modest, retiring, unostentatious 
man, but of deep, sincere piety and greatly interest- 
ed in the welfare of mankind. " 



CHAPTER Xn. 

With the explorer, the trader and the soldier, 
in the early days of the French occupation, there 
came also the missionary. More than two 
centuries ago pioneer Jesuit priests planted the 
cross in these wilds of the upper lakes; first at 
Sault Ste. Marie, as early as two hundred and fifty 
years since, and then in 1671 in our Michilimackinac 
region of St. Ignace,* on the northern mainland, 
four miles across from the island. The latter w^ork 
is associated particularly with Marquette, who 
founded it, and who w^as one of the most heroic and 
devoted of the early missionaries who came to this 
continent from France. He was a scholar and a 
man of science, according to the attainments of that 
day. It is said he was acquainted with six different 
languages. He was held in reverent esteem, both 
by the savages of the woods and by the traders and 
officers of the settlements. To his culture, his re- 
finement and his spirituality were added the en- 
thusiasm and daring of the explorer. He went out 
to find new countries as also to preach in the pagan 
wilds. In 1673, accompanied by Joliet, he set 
forth from St. Ignace with a small company in two 
bark canoes, on Sj long voyage of discovery. He 
struck out into Lake Michigan, thence into the 
rivers of Wisconsin, and thence into the Mississippi, 
and floated down that great river as far as to a 

*Point Iroquois, as it was first known. 125 



126 EARLY MACKINAC. 

point some thirty miles below the mouth of the 
Arkansas river, almost to the Louisiana line. 
T]iere the southern journey was ended and the re- 
turn trip was begun — ascending the Mississippi, 
entering the Illinois and thus reaching Lake 
Michigan again. Bat for Marquette the trip was 
never finished. He died at a point on the eastern 
shore of that lake, about midway between its upper 
and lower ends, and was buried there by his ever 
faithful and devoted Indian companions. Two 
years afterwards hJs body was exhumed and 
reverently taken back for interment at the St. 
Ignace Mission, which he had longingly desired 
again to reach, but had died without the sight. 
The discovery of his grave in the present town of 
St. Ignace, in the year 1877, has given new interest 
to that locality. 

Following the temporary abandonment of the 
French jDOst of Michilimackinac in 1701, and the re- 
moval of the settlement to Detroit, as already 
referred to, the St. Ignace Mission was given up, 
and the church burned by the priests themselves 
in fear lest it should be sacrilegiously destroyed by 
the savages. Subsequently, on the re- establish- 
ment of the fort on the southern peninsula opposite, 
the Catholic mission was revived and the Church 
of St. Ann was organized — the church and the 
entire settlement of families, as well as the garrison, 
being within the palisade enclosure. When in 
1780 the fort was removed to the island — and the 
settlers following — the church was also removed, 
its logs and timbers being taken down separately 
and then rejointed and set up again. It stood on 



MADAM LA FRAMBOISE. 127 

the old burying lot south of the present Astor 
House. Subsequently it was removed to another 
site. An addition was made extending its length, 
and the old church continued to stand until it gave 
way to the present large edifice, built on the same 
spot, in 1874. As an organization, however, the 
church dates far back to the early days over at 
old Mackinaw. The ground on which the building 
now stands w^as a bequest to the parish by a Madam 
La Framboise, who lived near by, with the stipula- 
tion that at death her body should be buried under 
the altar, in case the church should be removed to 
the place indicated. This being done, the condi- 
tions of the will were fulfilled. This Madam was 
of Indian blood, and the widow of a French fur 
trader. She is reported to have been a woman of re- 
markable energy and enterprise, and on the death of 
her husband ably mtjuag d the business he had left. 
She acquired the rudiments of education after her 
marriage, being taught by her husband, and in 
later years mad it a custom to receive young 
pupils at her house tc teach them to read and write, 
and also to instruct them in the principles of her 
religion. Her daughter became the wife of Lieut. 
John S. Pierce, a brother of President Pierce, who 
was an officer at the garrison in the early days, 
1815-1820. 

In the early times, the island being so remote 
a pioneer point, and its i^opulation meagre, this 
parish did not always have a resident priest, and 
for much of the time could only be visited by one 
at irregular and often distant intervals. In 1782, 
a petition signed by the merchants and other in- 



'128 EARLY MACKINAC. 

habitants of the village, was addressed to General 
HrJdimand, the English Governor General of the 
Province, asking that the Government take steps 
to aid in securing a cure, or minister of religion, 
for the stated maintenance of services. There ap- 
pears nothing to show that this was granted. The 
fur trade brought an element of population of a 
very mixed character. There were the educated 
officers and clerks of the company, and the 
voyageurs and trappers, who spent most of their 
time in the woods and on the water, with Mackinac 
as their place of resting and wage-payment, and 
the place of the reckless wasting of their hard, 
earned money. One who knew well the early 
character of the island, said of it, that few places 
on the continent had been so celebrated a locality 
for wild enjoyment; that the earnings of a year 
were often spent in the carousals of a week or a 
day; that the lordly Highlander, the impetuous 
son of Erin, and the proud and independent 
Englishman, did not do much better on the score 
of moral responsibilities than the humble 
voyageurs and courier des hois; that they broke gener- 
ally, nine out of the ten commandments without a 
wince, but kept the other very scrupulously, and 
would flash up and call their companions to a duel 
who doubted them on that point! 

Protestant Missions in the west gradually took 
shape as the settlement of the country advanced 
from the sea-board. The Rev. David Bacon, of the 
Connecticut Missionary Society, the father of the 
late Dr. Leonard Bacon, preached on the island for 
a short time as far back as 1802; not, however, es- 



EPISCOPAL CHURCH ORGANIZED. 129 

tablishing a mission or organizing- a church. Then, 
in 1820, the Rev. Jedidiah Morse, D.D., a Congre- 
gational minister, the father of the inventor of the 
telegraph system, visited the island, and made a 
short stay. The same Dr. Morse was the author of 
"Morse's Geography," once extensively used in 
our schools, and still well remembered. In earlier 
years the fort was a chaplaincy post, and the 
clergyman in charge, the Rev. Mr. O'Brien, from 
1842 until the opening of the civil war in 1861, 
conducted stated services of the Episcopal form of 
worship, which accommodated the^ people of the 
village as well as the soldiers. Out* of this work 
grew the Trinity Episcopal Church, organized in 
1873, under the ministration of the Rev. Wm. G. 
Stonex, who continued for some years the resident 
clergyman. For a time the parish held its Sunday 
services in the fort chapel; then the old Court 
House (now the City Hall) was used, and in 1882 
the present Church building was erected. There 
is generally a resident clei-gyman in charge. The 
Rt. Rev. Thomas P. Davies, D. D., bishop of the 
diocese of Michigan, being a summer cottager, 
frequently officiates. The Union Congregational 
church was organized April 1900, and at present use 
the City Hall as their place of meeting. A church 
edifice is in course of erection. 

To go back again to our earlier period. At t he 
time of Dr. Morse's visit to the island, he was 
under commission by the U. S. government on a two 
years' tour of observation and inspection among 
the various Indian tribes with a view "to devise 
the most suitable plan to advance their civilization 



130 EARLY MACKINAC. 

and happiness. '' * He arrived at the island, June 
16th, in the evening, and writes of the view that 
greeted his eye in the morning — * * "the fort look- 
ing down from the high bluff, and a fleet of Indian 
canoes drawn up on the beach, along which were 
pitched fifty or one hundred lodges — cone-shaped 
bark tents — filled with three or four hundred 
Indians, men, women and children, come to receive 
their annuities from the United States Government 
and to trade. " He remained a little over two weeks 
and preached in the Court House to large and at- 
tentive audiences. A week-day school and a 
Sabbath -school were formed for the children, and 
arrangements effected for Bible Society and Tract 
Society work. On his return to the East, the 
United Foreign Missionary Society, learning of the 
situation, took steps to plant a mission at Mackinac. 
The island was considered a strategic point for 
such operations, even as previously it had been a 
strategic situation from a military point of view. 
It was a central gathering place for the Indians for 
hundreds of miles away as well as from near at 
hand. The mission was established in 1823. The 
Rev. Wm. Ferry, a Presbyterian minister from the 
East, was appointed superintendent. 

The Mission was designed chiefly as a school 
for the training of Indian youth. It opened with 
twelve pupils, t The second year it numbered 
seventy. Two years after the opening of the 
enterprise the large school building and boarding 
house, now the hotel at the east end of the island, 

*From letter of instructions written him by John C. Calhoun, Secre- 
tary of War, Feb. 1820. 

tin large dwelling house still standing, unchanged, adjoining the 
Catholic church on the west. 



GOOD WORK OF THE SCHOOL. 131 

and bearing the original name "Mission House,"' 
was built. In 1826 the Society which had begun 
the work and maintained it for three years, was 
merged with the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions. Henceforth, until it closed, 
the Mackinac Mission was the work of that Board 
with headquarters in Boston. For several years 
the attendance at the school averaged about one 
hundred and fifty a year. Major Anderson, of the 
Canadian service, writing in 1828, says that 
w^hen this mission building was erected it was 
thought to be large enough to accommodate all 
who might desire its privileges, but such was the 
thirst for knowledge, that the house was then full; 
and that at least fifty more had sought admission 
that season who could not be received for lack of 
room. 

Besides the rudiments of English education, 
the boys were taught the more useful sort of handi- 
craft and trades, and the girls were taught sewing 
and housework. They were at all times under 
Christian influence, and were Systematically in- 
structed in the truths of the Gospel. In the 
Biography of Mrs. Jeremiah Porter, who before 
her marriage was Miss Chappelle, and who spent 
two years (1830-32) on the island, is given an ex- 
tract from her diary, in which she speaks of visit- 
ing the Mission House and hearing the young 
Indian girls, at their evening lesson, repeat 
together the 23d Psalm. and the 55th chapter of 
Isaiah, and of hearing a hymn sung "by sixteen 
sweet Indian voices which was particularly touch- 
ing." Col. Thos. McKenney, of the Indian Depart- 



182 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ment, gives another interesting glimpse of the 
school in his book, "Sketches of a Tour to the 
Lakes, " published in 1827. He had been sent out, 
the year before, from Washington as joint com- 
missioner with General Cass in negotiating a treaty 
with the Indians of the North. Having touched at 
Mackinac he describes his calling, in company with 
Mr. Robert Stuart, at ''the Missionary establish- 
ment in charge of Mr. Ferry. " The school family 
were at supper, and he writes, "we joined them in 
their prayers, which are offered after this meal." 
On another day he again visited the school, and re- 
ported of it: "The buildings are admirably adapt- 
ed for the object for which they were built. They 
are composed of a center and two wings — the center 
is occupied chiefly as the eating department and 
the offices connected therewith. The western wing 
accommodated the family. In the eastern wing 
are the school rooms, and below, in the ground 
story, are apartments for shoemakers and other 
manufactures. In the girls' school were seventy- 
three, from four to seventeen years old. In 
personal cleanliness and neatness, in behavior, in 
attainments in various branches, no children, white 
or red, excel them. The boys' school has about 
eighty, from four to eighteen. One is from Fond 
du Lac, upwards of seven hundred miles. Another 
from the Lake of the Woods. How far they have 
come to get light !" Referring to the Superin- 
tendent, Mr. Ferry, he speaks of him in terms of 
unqualified approbation. '*Few men possess his 
skill, his qualification, his industry and devotion 
to the work. Such a pattern of practical industry 



THE MISSION CHURCH. 1^0 

is without price in such an establishment. Indeed, 
the entire mission family appeared to me to have 
undertaken this most interesting charge from the 
purest motives. ' ' He makes mention of Mrs. 
Robert Stuart as ' 'an excellent, accomplished and 
intelligent lady, whose soul is in this V7ork of 
mercy. This school is in her eyes, the green spot 
of the island. With her influence and means she 
has held up the hands that were ready, in the 
beginning of this establishment, to hang down. 
She looks upon Mr. Ferry and his labors as being 
worth more to the island than all the land of which 
it is composed; whilst he, with gratitude, mentions 
her kindness, and that of her co-operating hus- 
band, " 

Mrs. John Kinzie, already referred to as being 
on the island in 1830, visited the Mission, and in 
her book makes similar testimony concerning it, 
saying among other things: "Through the zeal 
and good management of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry, and 
the fostering encouragement of the congregation, 
the school was in great repute. " 

A church for the island had already been or- 
ganized.* It was Presbyterian in name and form. 
It was a branch of Mr. Ferry's work, and he w^as 
the pastor during the whole time he remained on 
the island. A church building, the historic "Old 
Mission Church," still standing in its original 
dimensions and appearance, was built in 1829-30. 
Mackinac in those days shared with Detroit in 
distinction, the two towns being almost the only 
places of note in the State of Michigan. The Fur 
Company's business, together with the general 

*Organized with eight members, Feb. 1823, by Mr. Ferry during his 
preliminary visit, nearly one year in advance of opening the Mission School. 



134 EARLY MACKINAC. 

trading interests which centered here, brought to 
the island a considerable population. Thus large 
and interesting congregations were furnished for 
this church. Besides the teachers and their 
families, and the pupils of the mission school, 
there were many families of the village, officers 
and clerks of the company, traders, native Indian 
converts and others, who were members in regular 
attendance. The military post, too, used to be 
represented — officers and men coming down the 
street on Sunday mornings in martial step. The 
soldiers would stack their guns outside in front of 
the church; one of the men would be detailed to 
stand guard over the arms, while the others would 
file into the pews set apart for their accommoda- 
tion. 

The whole number of members enrolled during 
the history of the church was about eighty, exclu- 
sive of the mission family. As a pioneer church on 
the wilderness frontier, it was remarkable in 
having on its membership roll, and among its office 
bearers as Ruling Elders, two men of such stand- 
ing and public name as Robert Stuart and Henry 
R. Schoolcraft. 

The Mackinac experiment of mission work, 
unfortunately, was not continued long enough to 
show the largest results. Changes took place on 
the island which seriously affected the situation. 
It ceased to be the great resort for the Indians it 
had been at first. The Michigan lands were 
coming in demand for settlement; and the Govern- 
ment was deporting some of the tribes to reserva- 
tions farther West. Mr. Astor retired from the 



STORY OF CHUSKA. 135 

Fur Company, and that business lost its former 
magnitude. This involved the loss of many 
families and a change in social conditions. In 
1834, Mr. Perry removed from the island,* as did 
Mr. Stuart, the same year. Thus, for a variety of 
reasons the place ceasing to be an advantageous 
point for the work, it was deemed best to dis- 
continue it; and about 1836 the land (some twelve 
acres) and the buildings thereon were sold, and in 
1837 the Mission was formally given up. During 
the brief history of the school, however, not less 
than five hundred children of Indian blood and hab- 
its acquired the rudiments of education, and were 
taught the pursuits and toils of civilized life, and 
many became Christians. The American Board at 
that time considered that the Mackinac Mission 
had been very successful, especially in its out- 
reaching influence throughout the surrounding 
regions. 

One instance of remarkable conversion in the 
work of the Mission, was that of an old Indian 
necromancer or ' 'medicine man." His name was 
Wazhuska, or more popularly, Chuska. For forty 
years he had been famous on the island in the 
practice of that mysterious occultism which has 
often been found among low and barbarous races. 
He was supposed by his people to have supernatural 
power, and indeed the instances which have been 
reported of his strange facility seem remarkable. 
A sorcerer he might have been called, or, as such 
have also been designated, a ^'practitioner of the 

*Mr. Ferry settled at what became Grand Haven, in Michigan, 
himself founding the city and also its Presbyterian Church, and con- 
tinued to reside there until his death in 1867. 



136 EARLY MACKINAC. 

black art. " He embraced the Christian faith with 
clear perception of its essential truths, and with 
great simplicity of spirit; and entirely renounced 
all his "hidden works of darkness," together with 
the vice of drunkenness to which he had been lam- 
entably addicted, and after a year of testing and 
probation was admitted to membership in the 
Mission Church. He died in 1837, and was buried 
on Round Island. This story of Chuska and his 
conversion by the power of divine grace, was con- 
sidered of such interest that we find it related by 
Schoolcraft in three of his books— his "Personal 
Memoirs, "his "Oneota," (a collection of miscellany 
which tells of Chuska under the heading "The 
"Faith of a Converted Jossakeed") and, also, in his 
elaborate six volume work published by act of 
Congress. In his account of the case as given in 
the last named publication he furnishes represen- 
tations of the crude pictographic charms, and 
totems and symbols, which Chuska was accustomed 
to use in his pagan incantations, and which at the 
time of his conversion he had surrendered to Mr. 
Schoolcraft. The tale of Chuska is also told by 
Mrs. Jameson in the narrative of her visit to 
Mackinac in 1837; and in Strickland's "Old Mack- 
inaw." 

The Mission given up, the school closed, the 
teachers and their families gone, the trade and em- 
porium character of the village falling away, the 
church organization did not long survive. There 
was no successor of Mr. Perry in the pastorate. 
Mr. Schoolcraft, as an office bearer in the church, 
and always actively interested in its welfare, did all 




OLD MISvSION CHURCH 



THE OLD CHURCH. 137 

that a layman, so fully occupied as he, could do for 
its maintenance, often conducting a Sabbath service 
and reading a sermon to the people from some good 
collection. But so largely losing its families by 
removal, and unable under existing conditions to 
secure a pastor, the church organization became 
extinct. The church building, however, the "Old 
Mission Church" as it is familiarly known to this 
day, has survived all these years the lapse of the 
organization. It is probably the oldest Protestant 
Church structure in the whole Northwest. And 
while other ancient church buildings have been en- 
larged and changed in the course of years — an ex- 
tension put on, or a front or a tower added, or other 
material alterations made; this one, from end to end, 
and in its entire structural form, remains the same 
as at the time of its early dedication. It has stood 
four square to all the winds that have blown, as 
' 'solid as the faith of those who built it, "* unchanged 
from its original style and its bare and simple ap- 
pearance, with its old weather-vane and its wond- 
erfully bright tin-topped belfry — a mute memorial 
of a most worthy history of two generations ago. 
Despite its disuse and its increasing dilapidation, it 
has long been an object of tender interest, and has 
been visited by hundreds every season. It is gratify- 
ing, therefore, to know that a number of the summer 
cottagers and other visitors, joined by some of the 
island residents, have purchased the old church, 
and repaired and restored it so as to present the 
old-time appearance in which it had been known 

*Miss Woolson's -Anne.'' 



138 EARLY MACKINAC. 

for well nigh seventy years.* The gray weather- 
worn exterior is purposely left unpainted.f The 
same old "high-up" pulpit, the plain square pews 
with doors on them, the diminutive panes of glass 
in the windows, the quaint old-fashioned gallery at 
the entrance end — all these features appear as at 
the first. The property is held in trust for the 
purchasers by a board of seven trustees, five of 
whom are to be visitors who own or rent cottages, 
and two to be residents of the village. There is 
no ecclesiastical organization in connection with 
the building, nor any denominational color or con- 
trol. The motive in the movement has been, first, 
to preserve the old sanctuary as a historic relic of 
the island and memorial of early mission work; and, 
second, to use it as a chapel for union religious 
services during the few weeks when summer 
tourists crowd the island. 

*Repaired and restored in 1895. 
tin early days when the building was used for worship it was kept 
neatly whitewashed. In the long period of its disuse after ceasing to be 
church property, the annual whitewashing was abandoned, and for nearly 
two generations it stood untouched by any brush. As there are no signs 
of decay, it has been thought more consonant with its antiquity to leave 
the long-time, weather-worn appearance unchanged. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Our Island in its dimensions is three miles east 
and west, and two miles north and south. It has a 
crescent shaped harbor, which gives the same out- 
line to the village nestling on the rounded beach. 
There can be few places so small and circumscribed 
that can furnish so many pleasing impressions. In 
its antiquarian interest, in its unlikeness to the out- 
side world, in its dim traditions, and in its entranc- 
ing charms of natural scenery, there is found every 
variety for the eye, the taste and the imagination. 
While small enough to steam around it in an hour 
on the excursion boats, it is yet large enough to ad- 
mit of long secluded walks through its quiet, gentle 
woods. In the three score years or more that visi- 
tors have been coming here, there have grown up 
for it such tributes and terms of admiration as^ 
Gem of the Straits, Fairy Isle, Tourists' Paradise, 
Princess of the Islands, and such like. 

Rising almost perpendicularly out of the water, 
one hundred and fifty feet high, with its white 
stone cliffs and bluffs, and twice that height back 
on the crest of the hill, and covered with the 
densest and greenest foliage, it is an object of 
sight for many miles in every direction. Through- 
out we find that development and variety of beauty 
which nature makes when left to herself. The trees 
are the maple, and pine, and birch, and old beeches 
with strait and far-reaching branches and with 

139 



140 EARLY MACKINAC. 

rugged trunks, on which can be seen initials and 
dates running back many years — the mementos of 
visitors of long ago. The hardy cedar abounds also, 
and the evergreen spruce, larch and laurel, and 
tamarack. Throughout the woods running in 
different directions, are winding roads, arched and 
shaded by the overhanging tree-tops, as if they 
were continuous bowers, and bewitching foot- 
paths and trails; the fragrance of the fir and the 
balsam is everywhere, and a buoyancy in the 
atmosphere which invites to walking — the whole 
tract being safe, always, for even children to 
wander in. You come upon patches of the delicate 
wild strawberry with its aromatic flavor, the wild 
rose, the blue gentian, profuse beds of daisies, 
said to be of the largest variety in America, the 
curious "Indian pipes," luxuriant ferns in dark 
nooks, forever hidden from the sun, and thickest 
coverings of moss on rocks and old tree trunks. 
Then always, from every quarter and in every 
direction, are to be seen the great waters of the 
lakes, so many "seas of sweet water, " as they were 
described by Cadillac, the early French commander 
in this region — Huron to the east and Michigan 
on the west, with the Mackinac Straits between, 
and all so deep, so pure, so beautifully colored; 
and whether in the dead calm, when smooth as a 
floor, or shimmering and glistening in the sunshine, 
or in the silvery sheen of the moon at night, or 
again tossing and billowing in the storm — always 
exercising the power of a spell upon the beholder. 
Ever in sight, too, are the neighboring islands, 
standing out in the midst as masses of living green; 




IN THE WOODS. 



CURIOSITIES IN STONE. 141 

and the light- houses with their faithful, friendly 
night work; and the young cities on the two 
mainlands in- opposite directions; and always the 
picturesque old fort. Then, scattered over the 
islands are glens, and dells, and springs, and fan- 
tastic rock formations, ( "rock-osities" they were 
sometimes facetiously called in early days.) Many 
of these formations are interesting in a geological 
point of view as well as for their marked appear- 
ance and their legendary associations; and two of 
them, Sugar Loaf and Arch Rock, have been much 
studied by scientists, and are pictured in certain 
college text books to illustrate the teachings of 
natural science. 

On the eastern part of the island you come on 
certain openings which the earlier French term- 
ed Grands Jardins. Schoolcraft says no resident 
pretended to know their origin; that they had 
evidently been cleared for tilling purposes at a 
very early da^-, and that in his time there were 
mounds of stones, in a little valley near Arch Rock, 
which resembled the Scotch cairns, and which he 
supposes were the stones gathered out in the 
preparation of these little fields. These openings 
continued, at times, to be utilized for planting 
purposes to a period within the memory of persons 
now living on the island. For a long time past, 
however, they have been left alone, and nature has 
beautifully adorned them with a very luxuriant and 
graceful growth of evergreen trees and parterres 
of juniper in self -arranged grouj)ing and order, 
making each such place appear as if laid out and 



142 EARLY MACKINAC, 

cultivated on the most artistic plans of landscape 
gardening. 

For summer comfort — that is, for the escape of 
heat and the enjoyment of sifted, clean, delicious 
air — there can be no place excelling. As an old- 
time frequenter once said of it: "It must be air 
that came from Eden and escaped the curse." 
The immense bodies of water in the necklace of 
lakes thrown about the island become the regula- 
tor of its temperature. The only complaint that 
visitors ever make of the climate, is that it is not 
quite warm enough, and that blankets can not be 
"put away for the summer," but are in nightly 
requisition, and that the "family hearthstone" 
claims July and August as part of its working 
season. Malaria and hay fever are unknown. Dr. 
Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati, an eminent medical 
authority in his day, thus wrote from the island: 
"To one of jaded sensibilities, all around him is re- 
freshing. A feeling of security comes over him, 
and when, from the rocky battlements of Fort 
Mackinac, he looks down upon the surrounding 
wastes, they seem a mount of defense against the 
host of annoyances from which he had sought 
refuge — the historic associations, not less than the 
scenery of the island, being well fitted to maintain 
the salutary mental excitement."* 

The island has its legends, and folk-lore, and 
traditionary tales of romance and tragedy. There 
is not so much of this, however, as many suppose. 

* "Treatise on the Principal Diseases of North America," p. 348. 
"Hygeia, too, should place her temple here; for it has one of the 
purest, driest, cleanest and most healthful atmospheres."— 5c/iooIcra/f. 



SUGAR LOAF. 



14^ 



It is small in area and its scope for scenes, and 
tales, and associations is limited. Reference has 
already been made to Arch Rock as the gateway of 
entrance, in the Indian mind, for their Maniton of 
the lakes, when he visited the island, and to Sugar 




SUGAR LOAF- 



Loaf as his fancied wigwam, and to other rock 
formations which towered above the ground and 
were personified into watching giants. The Devil's 
Kitchen, on the southwest beach, has also been 
mentioned, but as divested of all mystery and as- 



144 EARLY MACKINAC. 

sociation Avitli the dim and early past. Chimney 
Rock and Fairj^ Arch are but appropriate names 
for interesting natural objects. The lofty, jutting 
cliff known as Pontiac's Look-out, is undoubtedly 
an admirable look-out spot, and is often so used 
now, as it probably often was in the days of Indian 
strifes when canoes of war parties went to and fro 
over the waters of the Straits. But we can not 
vouch for its ever having been Pontiac's watch- 
tower. For although the influence of that chieftain 
was felt in these remote parts, his home was near 
Detroit; and while we read of his travelling to the 
East and the South, and as having had part in the 
battle of Brad dock's defeat near Pittsburgh, we 
find nothing to show that he had ever been so iar 
north as our island, or at least had ever sojourned 
there. Lover's Leap, rising abruptly 145 feet 
above the lake, is too good a pinnacle, and too 
suitable for such sadly romantic purpose, as far as 
precipitous height and frightful rocks beneath are 
concerned, not to have suggested the tale of the 
too faithful, heart- sore Indian maiden. The story 
of Skull Cave has already been told; and although 
a piece of history, as far as the name of Henry the 
trader figures in it, should be justly regarded with 
as much interest as if it belonged to myth and 
fable. But at the same time, with all the modifi- 
cations which a sober realism may demand, there 
is begotten in the mind of every one who breathes 
the soft and dreamy air, and surrenders himself to 
the witchery of the little island, an impression of 
the wierd, and the mystical, and the poetic, however 
little defined and embodied it may be. This im- 




LOVER'S LEAP. 

"And on its surf-beat rocky shore. 
The eerie legend lingers long." 



ARCH ROCK. 



145 



pression is increased in the sense of charm impart- 
ed by the dim and shadowy past of a noble but un- 
tutored race of nature's children in connection with 
a spot of such rare attractiveness, and which, dis- 




ARCH ROCK. 

similar in formation and character from all the 
other land about, seems as though it were separate 
from the ordinary seats of life. 

Arch Rock has long been celebrated. It ap- 



146 EARLY MACKINAC. 

pears as if hanging in the air, and as a caprice of 
nature. It is a part of the precipitous cliff- side, 
and stands a hundred and forty feet above the 
water's edge. It has been accounted for by the 
more rapid decomposition of the lower than of the 
upper parts of the calcareous stone bank — which 
process, however, it used to be thought, was fast 
extending to the whole. McKenney in his ''Tour 
of the Lakes," published in 1827, thus writes: 
*'This arch is crumbling, and a few years will 
deprive the island of Michilimackinac of a curiosity 
which it is worth visiting to see, even if this were 
the only inducement. " The latter remark is most 
true but we are glad he was so mistaken in the 
first part of his sentence. The arch has survived 
the unfortunate prophecy for seventy years, and 
bids fair still to hold on. It is true, however, that 
some portions may have fallen, and the surface of 
the cross-way been reduced, since the days when 
boys played on it, and whqn, according to an early 
tradition, a lady rode horse-back over the span. 

Sugar Loaf is another curiosity in stone; 
conical in shape, like the old-fashioned form in 
which hard, white sugar used to be prepared. In- 
cluding the plateau out of which it rises, it is tw^o 
hundred and eighty- four feet high, erect and 
rugged, in appearance somewhat between a pyra- 
mid of Egypt and an obelisk. Like the Arch, 
it is a ''survival of the fittest" — the softer sub- 
stance about it being worn away and carried off 
in the process of geological changes, and leaving 
it solitary among the trees. 

Robinson's Folly is the lofty, broad and blunt 



ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 147 

precipitous cliff at the East end of the island, one 
hundred and twenty-seven feet above the beach. 
The origin of the name is uncertain, save that it is 
associated in some way with the English Captain 
Robertson (Robinson) who belonged to the fort 
garrison for seven years, and, as already mentioned, 
was its commandant from 1782 to 1787. There are 
no less than five traditionary stories, or legends, in 
explanation of the name. These stories vary from 
the prosaic and trifling, to the very romantic and 
tragical. A common account is that he built a 
little bower house on the very edge of the cliff 
which he made a place of resort, and revelry may- 
hap, in summer days; and that once, either by a 
gale of wind or by the crumbling of the outer 
ledge of stone, the house fell to the beach below. 
One version of the legend has Robinson himself in 
the house at the time, and, like a devoted sea 
captain "going down with his ship," dashed to 
death in the fall. Another is that on one occasion 
when a feast and carousal were projected on the 
cliff, and when the things of good cheer were all in 
readiness, and the participants, led by their host, 
delaying for a little their arrival, some lurking 
Indians, watchful and very hungry, stole a march 
on the company and devoured all that was in 
sight. 

The other tales are of a different hue. One is, 
that once walking near this spot the Captain 
thought he saw just before him, and gazing at him, 
a beautiful maiden. On his attempting gallantly 
to approach her, she kept receding, and walking 
backwards as she moved she came dangerously 



148 EARLY MACKINAC. ^ 

near the edge. As he rushed forward to her rescue, 
the girl proved to be but a phantom and dissolved 
into thin air, while the impetuous captain was 
dashed to death on the rocks below. Yet another is 
of this order: That Robertson (Robinson) had been 
one of the garrison force at the old fort across the 
Straits at the time of the massacre in 1763, and had 
been saved by an Indian girl who was exceedingly 
attached to him. After removing to the island, 
and bringing a white bride there, the Indian girl 
followed him and dwelt in a lodge he had built for 
her on the brow of the great cliff, nursing her 
jealousy and revenge. She begged one last inter- 
view with him before leaving the place forever. 
On the Captain's granting this, and standing beside 
her on the edge, she suddenly seized his arm in her 
frenzy and leaped off, dragging him with her to 
death. 

There is one more of this harrowingly tragical 
kind, in the attemi3t to explain the naming, which 
had much currency in earlier days, and is given in 
tourists' notes of sixty jT^ears ago: That Robinson 
had married an amiable and attractive Indian girl, 
Wintemoyeh, the youngest daughter of Peezhicki, 
a great war chief of the Chippewas, and had brought 
her to his home at the fort. This aroused the 
deadly hatred of Peezhicki, who had reserved the 
girl for one of the warriors of his tribe. Robinson 
celebrated his marriage by giving a banquet feast 
in his bower on the cliff. The bride was present, 
and a company of guests. The father learned of 
the feast and concealed himself in the cedar bushes 
to shoot the man who had taken his. daughter. 



•;i£^f^ 





% 



ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 

large ledge formerly projected from the top of this cliff, over- 
looking the beach and commanding a view of the lake and the 
surroundinjj; islands. On that ledge it is probable the fateful 
summer house had been erected In course of time this projec- 
ting part broke and fell to the beach below. The rocks to-day 
seen at the base are doubtless some of the fragments. The 
whole ot the crag did not sheere off at once, as an old drawing, 
made in 1839, shows a portion still remaining. 



ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 149 

A faithful sergeant, (the story even gives his name, 
MacWhorter,) was present and saw the Indian level 
his gun. He sprang up to protect the Captain, 
and himself received the shot and fell dead. 
Robinson then grappled w^ith the fierce chief, and 
in the struggle the two meji came dangerously 
near the brow. The Indian, with his tomahawk 
raised, took a step or two backward to get better 
poise for his blow. This brought him to the very 
edge. A piece of stone gave way and he fell, but 
saved himself by catching at the projecting root of 
a tree. The girl now seeing her husband safe and 
only her father in danger, sprang forward to his 
help. He was thus able to raise himself to where 
she stood. Then seizing her around the waist, he 
dashed off from the cliff and both perished to- 
gether. 

The first two of these stories concerning the 
famous cliff, might very naturally suggest the 
name "Folly." But the others smack more of 
profound tragedy, spiced with romance. Of course, 
Robinson was not in the massacre affair of long 
before, across the straits; he being at that time in 
army service, under Gen. Bouquet, against the 
Indians in Eastern Pennsylvania. That he met 
his death on the island by falling over the cliff, or 
even in a more normal manner, is a supposition 
only, without any evidence. There is reason to 
suppose he still "lived to fight another day" after 
leaving the island post. It may be added, too, 
that at the period of his Mackinac command he had 
already seen over thirty years of service in the 
English army, and was no longer in the romance 



150 EARLY MACKINAC. 

and lively heyday of youth. There must, however, 
have been something about a summer bower or 
hut, and something about feasting, and something 
about a dreadful fall, v^^hich illustrated the ''folly'' 
of establishing a pleasure resort on the very brow 
of a dreadful precipice. Viewed together, these 
stories all become interesting as throwing some 
light on the origin of myths, and as showing how 
traditions, exceedingly variant, may yet have some 
of the same threads running through them all. 
But I would not philosophize. I simply rehearse 
these stories, the trivial and the grave, and leave 
them to the imagination and the choice of the 
reader. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

From an early day the island's charm of 
sylvan and water scenery and its delightful sum- 
mer air, together with its historical associations 
and its flavor of antiquity, gave it a wide-spread 
fame. There are but few places anywhere in our 
country that are older as tourist resorts. Seventy 
and eighty years ago visitors were coming here, 
despite the diiflculty and tedium in that time, of 
reaching so remote a point. Persons of high 
distinction in public life and in the walks of litera- 
ture, and travelers from foreign countries, were 
often among the visitors; and our island has figur- 
ed in many descriptive books of travel. As some 
of these authors wrote so appreciatingly of the 
island, and as those particular books of long ago 
are now out of print and not easily accessible, I 
think the readers of this sketch will be pleased to 
see a few extracts. These writers all speak of 
having known the island by reputation in advance 
of their coming, and of beingi drawn by its fame. 

In 1843, the Countess Ossoli, better known as 
our American Margaret Fuller, of Boston, spent 
nine days in Mackinac, as part of a protracted 
journey she made in the northwest, and which she 
detailed in her book, "Summer on the Lakes." 
She expressed in advance her pleasurable anticipa- 
tion of "the most celebrated beauties of the island 
of Mackinac;" and then adds her tribute to "the 

151 



J 52 EARLY MACKINAC. 

exceeding beauty of the spot and its position." 
She arrived at a time when nearly two thousand 
Indians (and "more coming every day") were en- 
camped on the beach to receive their annual pay- 
ments from the government. As the vessel came 
into tlie harbor "the Captain had some rockets let 
off which greatly excited the Indians, and their 
wild cries resounded along the shores. " The 
island was "a scene of ideal loveliness, and these 
wild forms adorned it as looking so at home in it." 
She represents it as a "pleasing sight, after the 
raw, crude, staring assemblage of houses every- 
where sure to be met in this country, to see the 
old French town, mellow in its coloring, and with 
the harmonious effect of a slow growth which 
assimilates naturally with objects around it. '' Con- 
cerning Arch Rock, she says: "The arch is per- 
fect, whether you look up through it from the 
lake, or down through it to the transparent 
waters." She both ascended and descended "the 
steep and crumbling path, and rested at the sum- 
mit beneath the trees, and at the foot upon the cool 
mossy stones beside the lapsing wave." Sugar- 
Loaf rock struck her as having ' 'the air of a helmet, 
as seen from an eminence at the side. The rock 
may be ascended by the bold and agile. Half way 
up is a niche to which those, who are neither, can 
climb a ladder. " The woods she describes as 
"very full in foliage, and in August showed the 
tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere." 
She gives us a view from the bluffs on the harbor 
side: "I never wished to see a more fascinating 
picture. It was an hour of the deepest serenity; 



A SCENE ON THE BEACH. 153 

bright blue and gold with rich shadows. Every 
moment the sunlight fell more mellow. The 
Indians were grouped and scattered among the 
lodges; the women preparing food over the many 
small fires; the children, half naked, wild as little 
goblins, were playing both in and out of the water; 
bark canoes upturned upon the beach, and others 
coming, their square sails set and with almost, 
arrowy speed." And a familiar picture is this: 
"Those evenings we were happy, looking over the 
old-fashioned garden, over the beach, and the 
pretty island opposite, beneath the growing 
moon." 

A two-volume book, (published anonymously 
and giving no clue to its author, except that he 
was a practicing physician of New York City), 
titled "Life on the Lakes, or a Trip to the Pictur- 
ed Rocks," describes a visit to Mackinac in 1835.* 
"Though the first glance," he says, "at any looked 
for object is most always disappointing, it is not so- 
when you first see Mackinac. " A moonlight view 
of the island from the waters, he thus describes:: 
"The scene was enchanting; the tall white cliff, 
the whiter fort, the winding, yet still precipitous 
pathway, the village below buried in a deep, 
gloomy shade, the little bay where two or three 
small, half-rigged sloops lay asleep upon the 
water." It reminded him of descriptions he had 
read of Spanish scenery, "where the white walls of 
some Moorish castle crown the brow of the lofty 
Sierra." In describing his stay on the island he 

*The author is now known to have been Dr. Chandler R. Gilman, 
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. 



154 EARLY MACKINAC. 

makes interesting mention of a Sunday service he 
attended at the Old Mission Church. He reports 
the building as neat and commodious, though the 
congregation was small. There was no Protestant 
clergyman on the island, but Mr, Schoolcraft (the 
ruling elder of the church) conducted the service 
and read from some book a very good sermon. 
The singing of the choir was excellent, and was 
led by a sergeant of the fort. The whole appear- 
ance of the congregation, he thought, was very 
striking; officers and privates of the garrison, with 
the marks of rank of the one class, and the plainer 
uniforms of the other, were mingled together in 
the body of the church; there were well-dressed 
ladies and gentlemen of the village along with 
those of simpler attire; and here and there were 
Indians w^earing blankets, and standing about the 
doors were others of that race in their ordinary 
savage dress. 

He mentions in evident astonishment, and as 
conveying a hint about the island climate, his 
eating cherries and currants in Mr. Schoolcraft's 
garden in the month of September. And as a 
piece of harmless pleasantry, w^e may give yet 
another of his observations of sixty-two years ago: 
* 'There are more cov/s in Mackinac than in any 
other place of its size in the known world, and 
every cow has at least one bell." 

English visitors in their tours of observation 
through the United States were often drawn 
thither — making the long journey to these upper 
lakes, and stopping off to see the island of whose 
iame they had heard. Captain Marryatt, first an 



CAPTAIN MARRYATT. 



officer of celebrity in the English navy, but more 
'known in this country as a novelist largely given 
to sea tales, was here in the summer of 1837. In 
his "Diary of America" he writes of Mackinac: 
"It has the appearance of a fairy island floating 
on the water, which is so pure and transparent 




^^1 



TANGLEWOOD 

that you may see down to almost any depth, and 
the air above is as pure as the water that you feel 
invigorated as you breathe it.* The first reminis- 



*Marryatt's admiration of the transparent waters suggests what i 
find related of a certain lady of long ago, that once sailing in the harbor 
and gazing with rapt fondness into th3 pellucid depths, she enthusiasti- 
cally exclaimed; "Oh, I could wish to pe drowned in these pure, beauti- 
ful waters! " 



156 EARLY MACKINAC. 

cence brought to my mind after I had landed was 
the description by Walter Scott of the island and 
residence of Magnus Troil and his daughters 
Minna and Brenda, in the novel, 'The Pirate.'" 
The appearance of the village streets, largely given 
to sails, cordage, nets, fish barrels and the like, 
still further suggested the resemblance to his 
mind, and he says he might have imagined himself 
"transferred to that Shetland Isle, had it not been 
for the lodges of the Indians on the beach, and the 
Indians themselves, either running about or lyi^g 
on the porches before the whisky stores. " 

There were also two lady visitors here from 
England, in the days of early Mackinac: Mrs. 
Jameson and Miss Harriet Martineau. Both have 
high rank and distinction in English literature. 
Each of them published her impressions of Mack- 
inac after returning home. In their admiration 
and enthusiasm for the island they could not be 
surpassed by the most devoted American visitor 
who ever touched these shores. 

Mrs. Jameson is well known as the writer of 
such books as, "Sacred and Legendary Art," 
"Legends of the Madonna," "Essays of Art, 
Literature and Social Morals," "Memoirs of the 
Early Italian Painters," etc. Miss Martineau 
was of more vigorous intellect, and her writings 
deal more with subjects of political economy and 
social philosophy. She it was, too, who translated 
and introduced into England the writings of the 
French philosopher Comte. As both these books 
which touch on Mackinac, written over sixty years. 



MRS. JAMESON. 157 

ago, were descriptive of travels, and not of the 
same general interest which attaches to their other 
writings, they are now out of print and have be- 
come rare. 

Mrs. Jameson's visit to the island was in the 
summer of 1H35. She came up Lake Huron from 
Detroit by steamboat. Among her fellow passeng- 
ers were the Episcopal Church Bishop of Michigan, 
and Gen. Brady of the U. S. Army. The boat ar- 
rived in the harbor early in the morning, and had 
but half an hour to stay. As soon as might be she 
eagerly ran up to the deck for her first view. I 
quote her picture of description: 

"A scene burst at once on my enchanted gaze, 
such as I never had imagined. We were lying in 
a tiny bay, crescent-shaped, of which the two 
horns or extremities were formed by long narrow 
promontories projecting into the lake. On the 
east the whole sky was flushed with a deep amber 
glow flecked with softest shadows of rose color, 
4he same splendour reflected in the lake; and be- 
tween the glory above and the glory below stood 
the little missionary church, its light spire and 
belfry defined against the sky.* On the opposite 
side of the heavens hung the moon, waxing paler 
and paler, and melting away, as it seemed, before 
the splendour of the rising day. Immediately in 
front rose the abrupt and picturesque heights of 
the island, robed in richest foliage, and crowned 
by the lines of the little fortress, snow-white, and 
gleaming in the morning light. At the base of 

*Now known as the Old Mission Church, standing at the east end of 
the island. See p. 137 of this book. 



158 EARLY MACKINAC. 

these cliffs, all along the shore, immediately on the 
edge of the lake, which, transparent and unruffled, 
reflected every form as in a mirror, an encampment 
of Indian wigwams extended far as my eye could 
reach on either side. Even while I looked, the in- 
mates were beginning to bestir themselves, and 
dusky figures were seen emerging into sight from 
their picturesque dormitories, and stood gazing on 
us with folded arms, or were busied about their 
canoes, of which some hundreds lay along the 
beach.* 

''There was not a breath of air; and while 
heaven and earth were glowing with light, and 
colour, and life, an elysian stillness — a delicious 
balmy serenity wrapt and interfused the whole. 
O how passing lovely it was! how wondrously 
beautiful and strange! I cannot tell how long I 
may have stood, lost — absolutely lost, and fearing 
even to wink my eyes, lest the spell should dis- 
solve, and all should vanish away like some air- 
wrought fantasy, some dream out of fairy land, — 
when the good Bishop of Michigan came up to me, 
and with a smiling benevolence waked me out of 

*She saw a great deal of the Indians as they were encamped along the 
island beach, all of which was an interesting novelty to her, a visitor from 
another land. Among other things the following observations about their 
tones of speech she says she maJe "while loitering among them." It is 
in accord with what has often been testified to of the soft and gentle mod- 
ulations of the Indian voice. She writes: 

"They seldom raise their voices, and they pronounce several words 
much more softly than we write them. Wigwam, a house, they pronounce 
xi)ee-ga-li?3am\ moccasin, a shoe, muck-a-zeen; manito, spirit, mo-needo — 
lengthening the vowels, and softening the aspirates. The accent of the 
women is particularly soft, with a sort of plaintive modulation, remind- 
ing me of recitative. Their low laugh is quite musical, and has some- 
thing infantine in it. I sometimes hear them sing, and the strain is gen- 
erally in a minor key." 



GUEST AT OLD AGENCY. 159 

my ecstatic trance; and reminding me that I had 
but two minutes left, seized upon some of my 
packages himself, and hurried me on to the wooden 
pier just in time. We were then conducted to a. 
little inn, or boarding house, kept by a very fat 
half -cast Indian woman, who spoke Indian, bad 
French and worse English, and who was addressed 
as Madame.'' 

Mrs. Jameson made quite an extended stay at 
Mackinac, the guest of Mr. and Mrs Schoolcraft. 
She pictures Mrs. Schoolcraft with ''features de- 
cidedly Indian, accent slightly foreign, a soft, 
plaintive voice, her language pure and remark- 
ably elegant, refined, womanly and unaffectedly 
pious.'' The Schoolcraft home was the house 
known as the "Old Agency."* She thus des- 
cribes it.* **Not quite half-way up the wooded 
height which overlooks the bay, embowered in 
foliage, and sheltered from the tyrannous breath- 
ing of the north by the precipitous cliff, rising al- 
most perpendicularly behind, stands the house in 
which I find myself at present, a grateful and con- 
tented inmate. The ground in front sloping down 



*Built by the U. S. Government for the use of its Agent in Indian 
afifairs. It was both residence and ofl5ce. It stood near the foot of the 
bluff, on the ground between the present Public School building and the 
well-known hotel, the Island House. The annuities to the Indians were 
paid at the Agency. Its spacious grounds were surrounded by palisades^ 
and on payment days the gates were guarded by soldiers. It long sur- 
vived its original purpose, but was always known as the "Old Agency.'* 
It was accidentally destroyed by fire in the winter of 1873-'74. 

Mrs. John Kinzie, of Chicago, writing of Mackinac in 1830, thus refers 
to it: "The Agency-house, with its unusual luxury of piajzza and gardens 
It was a lovely spot, notwithstanding the stunted and dwarfish appear- 
anc« of all cultivated vegetation in this cold northern latitude." 



160 EARLY MACKINAC. 

to the shore, is laid out in a garden, with an 
avenue of fruit trees, the gate at the end opening 
on the very edge of the lake. From the porch I 
look down upon the scene I have endeavoured — 
how inadequately — to describe, the little cres- 
cent bay; the village of Mackinaw; the beach 
thickly studded with Indian lodges, canoes, fish- 
ing, or darting hither and thither, light and buoy- 
ant as sea birds, a tall graceful schooner swinging 
at anchor. Opposite rises the island of Bois- 
blanc, with its tufted and most luxuriant foliage. 
To the east we see the open lake, and in the far 
western distance the promontory of Michilimacki- 
nac, and the strait of that name, the portal of Lake 
Michigan," 

Again, we hear her speaking of "the exceed- 
ing beauty of this little paradise of an island, the 
attention which has been excited by its enchanting 
scenery, and the salubrity of its summer climate.'' 

She saw the island throughout, taking tramps 
over it and "delicious drives,'' and writes of it as 
"wonderfully beautiful — a perpetual succession of 
low, rich groves, alleys, green dingles and bosky 
dales." After her glowing description, she sums 
up by saying, "It is a bijou of an island. A little 
bit of fairy ground, just such a thing as some 
of our amateur travelers would like to pocket and 
run away with (if they could) and set down in the 
midst of their fish ponds; skull-cave, wigwams, 
Indians and all." 

Miss Martineau spent two years in this coun- 
try, traveling extensively through the States and 



MISS MARTINEAU. 



161 



writing her impressions. She published two 
books as the outcome of her journeying, ''Society 
in America, " and afterwards, her * 'Retrospect of 
Western Traveling." It was in July, 1836, that 




ONE OF THE DRIVES. 



she visited Mackinac, and it is in the first named of 
these two books that she tells of it. She came by 
way of Lake Michigan, from Chicago, traveling in 
a slow-going sail-vessel. She speaks of a fellow- 
passenger on the vessel, "Mr. D., who was en- 



162 EARLY MACKINAC. 

gaged in the fur trade at Mackinaw, and had a farm 
there, to which he kindly invited us."* 

The vessel approached the island in the even- 
ing towards sun-setting time. As did Mrs. Jameson, 
so Miss Martineau first pictures it as viewed from 
the vessel: *'We saw a white speck before us; it 
was the barracks of Mackinaw, stretching along 
the side of its green hills, and clearly visible be- 
fore the town came into view. The island looked 
enchanting as we approached, as I think it always 
must, though we had the advantage of seeing it 
first steeped in the most golden sunshine that ever 
hallowed lake or shore." 

The day of her arrival was the 4th of July, 
and, — "The colors were up on all the little vessels 
in the harbor. The national flag streamed from 
the garrison. The soldiers 'thronged the walls of 
the barracks; half-breed boys were paddling about 
in their canoes, in the transparent waters; the half- 
French, half-Indian population of the place were 
all abroad in their best. An Indian lodge was on 
the shore, and a picturesque dark group stood be- 
side it. The cows were coming down the steep 
green slope to the milking. Nothing could be 
more bright or joyous." 

Describing the appearance of the village, she 
took note of some of the old French houses, 
"dusky and roofed with bark." There were also 
''some neat yellow houses, with red shutters, 
which have a foreign air, with their porches and 
flights of steps, The better houses stand on the 

♦Her Mr. D. was doubtless Mr. Michal Dousman, who figured con- 
spicuously in the earlier annals of the island. 



SCENE FROM THE VESSEL. 163 

first of the three terraces which are distinctly 
marked. Behind them are swelling green knolls; 
before them gardens sloping down to the narrow 
slip of white beach, so that the grass seems to 
grow almost into the clear rippling waves. There 
were two small piers with little barks alongside, 
and piles of wood for the steamboats. Some way 
to the right stood the quadrangle of the missionary 
buildings, and the white missionary church.* Still 
further to the right was a shrubby precipice down 
to the lake; and beyond, the blue waters." 

Their vessel was anchored out in the bay, and 
Miss Martineau and her party were alarmed by 
the declared purpose of the captain, that he 
would remain but three hours, and he seemed to 
have no intention of taking them ashore that even- 
ing. "The dreadful idea occurred to us that we 
might be carried away from this paradise, without 
having set foot in it. We looked at each other in 
dismay. Mr. D. stood our friend. He had some 
furs on board which were to be landed. He said 
this should not be done till the morning; and he 
would take care that his people did it with the ut- 
most possible slowness. He thought he could 
gain us an additional hour in this way." The cap- 
tain, however, proved accomodating, and put the 
yawl boat at their service for any hour in the 
morning. 

Some of the party having met the com- 
mandant of the fort, an engagement was made for 
an early walk in the morning. And thus she tells 

♦See page 137 and foot note p. 138 of this book. 



164 EARLY MACKINAC. 

of it: "At 5 o'clock we descended the ship's side, 
and from the boat could see the commandant and 
his dog hastening down the garrison to the land- 
ing place. We returned with him up the hill, 
through the barrack yard; and were joined by- 
three members of his family on the velvet green 
slope behind the garrison. No words can give an 
idea of the charms of this morning walk. We 
wound about in a vast shrubbery, with ripe 
strawberries underfoot, with flowers all around, 
and scattered knolls and opening vistas tempting 
curiosity in every direction. 'Now run up,' said 
the Commandent, as we arrived at the foot of one 
of these knolls. I did so, and was almost struck 
backwards by what I saw. Below me was the 
Natural Bridge of Mackinaw, of which I had 
heard frequent mention."* Thus designating 
Arch Rock, she describes it as "a, lime- 
stone arch, about one hundred and fifty feet 
high in the center, with a space of fifty feet; 
one pillar resting on a rocky projection in the 
lake, the other on the hill. We viewed it from 
above, so that the horizon line of the lake fell be- 
hind the bridge, and the blue expanse of water 
filled the entire arch. Birch and ash (aspen ?) 
grew around the bases of the pillars, and shrub- 
bery tufted the sides, and dangled from the 
bridge. The soft rich hues in which the whole 



*In those early days, and for a long time subsequent, the "hollowed 
out" place, in the land-front of the arch, had not been made. The bluff 
then extended across what is now open space, and beholders had their 
land-side view of the arch from a higher elevation than now. 



SCENE FROM FORT HOLMES. 165 

was dressed seemed borrowed from the autumn 
sky." 

But especially charming and impressive, she 
thought, was the prospect from Fort Holmes. As 
she looked out on the glassy lake and the green 
tufted islands, she compares it to what Noah might 
have seen the first bright morning after the del- 
uge, "Such a cluster of little paradises rising out 
of such a congregation of waters! Blue waters in 
every direction, wholly unlike any aspect of the 
sea, cloud shadows and specks of white vessels. 
Bowery islands rise out of it; bowery promon- 
tories stretch down into it; while at one's feet 
lies the melting beauty which one almost fears 
will vanish in its softness before one's eyes; the 
beauty of the shadowy dells and sunny mounds, 
with browsing cattle and springing fruit and 
flowers. Thus, would I fain think, did the world 
emerge from the flood. * * * 

"I stood now at the confluence of those great 
Northern lakes, the very names of which awed my 
childhood; calling up as they did, images of the 
fearful red man of the deep pine forest, and the 
music of the moaning winds, imprisoned beneath 
the ice of winter. How different from the scene, 
as actually beheld, dressed in verdure, flowers, 
and the sunshine of a summer's morning!' ' 

After their early walk. Miss Martineau and her 
party took breakfast with the courteous comman- 
dant at one of the old stone quarters of the fort, 
and sat a while on the piazza overlooking the 
village and the harbor, and the white beach. In 



166 EARLY MACKINAC. 

response to her inquiries about the healthfulness 
and the climate, her host humorously replied 
that it was so healthy people had to get off the is- 
land to die; and that as to the island climate, they 
had nine months winter and three months cold 
weather. 

It was with great regret that they parted with 
the commandant and stepped into the boat to re- 
turn to their vessel. The captain was hurrying to 
weigh anchor and be off. In reference to her de- 
parture she writes: "We were in great delight 
at having seen Mackinaw, at having the posses- 
sion of its singular imagery for life. But this de- 
light was dashed with the sorrow of leaving it. I 
could not have believed how deeply it is possible 
to regret a place, after so brief an acquaintance 
with it. " And then she tells how she did, just 
what thousands since have done, who after visit- 
ing the island have regretfully sailed from it: 
**We watched the island as we rapidly receded. 
Its flag first vanished; then its green terraces and 
slopes, its white barracks, and dark promontories 
faded, till the whole disappeared behind a head- 
land and light-house of the Michigan shore."* 

We close Miss Martineau's tribute with this 
comprehensive note of admiration: ''From place 
to place in my previous traveling, I had been told 

♦Thus another lady writer, Mrs. John Kinzie, described the sailing 
away from the island after her visit there in 1830, as found in her book, 
Wau-'Bun— {Indian, the dawn— the break of day): "A finer sight can 
scarcely be imagined than Mackinac, from the water. As we steamed 
from the shore, the view came full upon us — the sloping beach with the 
scattered wigwams, and canoes drawn up here and there, the irregular, 
quaint-looking homes— the white walls ot the fort, and beyond, one 
eminence still more lofty crowned with the remains of old Fort Holmes." 



A TRIBUTE IN VERSE. 167 

of the charms of the lakes, and especially of the 
Island of Mackinaw. The island is chiefly known 
as a principal station of the great northwestern 
fur company. Others know it as the seat of an 
Indian mission. Others, again, as a frontier gar- 
rison. It is known to me as the wildest and tend- 
erest piece of beauty that I have yet seen on God's 
earth."* 

Captain Marryatt, who had read this descrip- 
tion before his visit to the island (already referred 
to) said, when writing his own impressions, "Miss 
Martineau has not been too lavish in her praises of 
Mackinaw." These testimonies by persons of wide 
travel, and of cultivated taste and power of obser- 
vation, and visitors as they were from another 
land, come down to us very pleasantly from those 
ealy days. 

I close this collection of early descriptions and 
tributes, with lines written by an appreciative 
summer visitor of modern days— The Rev. David 
H. Riddle, D. D. 

I know an isle, an emerald set in pearl, 

Mounting the chain of topaz, amethyst. 
That forms the circle of our summer seas — 

The fairest that our western sun hath kissed. 

For all things lovely lend her loveliness; 

The waves reach forth white fingers to caress, 
The four winds, murmuringly meet to woo 

And cloudless skies bend in blue tenderness. 



*Schoolcraft in his journal makes note of Miss Martineau's calling at 
his house that morning, and of her expressing "an enthusiastic admira- 
tion for the natural beauties of Michilimackinac' 



168 EARLY MACKINAC. 

The classic nymphs still haunt her grassy pools; 

Her woods, in green, the Norseland elves have draped. 
And fairies, from all lands, or far or near. 

Her airy cliffs, and carving shores, have shaped. 

Of old, strange suitors came in quest of her, 
Some in the pride of conquest, some for pelf; 

Priests in their piety, red men for revenge- 
All Beek her now, alone, for her fair self. 



APPENDIX. 

A, page 13. — Pronunciation of Island Name. 

"The Island of Michilimackinac now called Mackinaw. "^ 
— Parkman in ''History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac" chap. 
16. 

As further bearing on the question of pronunciation — I 
have been privileged to see an old autograph letter written 
on the island Nov. 23rd, 1830, which quotes some lines of 
verse descriptive of its natural beauty, the production of a 
gentleman residing in Connecticut who had visited Mackinac 
anterior to that date. This old autograph letter was kindly 
loaned me by Mrs. H. C. Hall, of Ashfield, Mass., a daughter 
of Rev, and Mrs. Ferry, of the Island Mission work in the 
early part of last century; 

"The storms of Huron past with joy I saw 
The rising peaks of distant Mackinac." 

This certainly is convincing evidence of the claim, that 
while in early days the two modes of spelling were inter- 
changeably used, now Mackinac and now MackinaWf yet in 
pronunciation, however the name chanced to be written, it 
was invariably Mackinaw. The law of rhyme, in this in- 
stance, settles it. 

While I have introduced this testimony from the field 
of poetry and rhyme for its bearing on the question of pro- 
nunciation, yet for the sake of its tribute to the island and as 
indicating the old-time admiration felt for it by visiting 
strangers, I will insert it entire: 

"The storms of Huron past with joy I saw 
The rising peaks of distant Mackinac. 
'Twas eve, the rugged bluffs ascending high, 
Showed their rude outlines on the western sky, 
While o'er the Fort, where once war's tumult raved, 
Columbia's flag in peaceful triumph waved . " 



170 EARLY MACKINAC. 



'I seem to see thee now, romantic Isle! 
1 see thy cliffs that frown, thy vales that smile, 
Thy lofty arch, projecting o'er the deep, 
Thy cave of skulls where Indian heroes sleep, 
Thy towering pyramid of nature's pride, 
And pleasant village on thy southern side." 



B, page as.— White=fish of the Upper Lakes. 

"This fish, in the universal estimation, is the finest that 
swims. Their weight varies from four to ten and sometimes 
fourteen pounds. The meat is as white as the breast of a 
partridge; and the bones are less numerous and larger than 
in our shad." Col, McKenney in his '"Tour to the Lakes," 
1826. 

Mrs. Jameson, an English visitor, in 1837, writing from 
the Sault, at the head of the St- Mapy's river, says: ''I have 
eaten tunny in the Grulf of Glenoa, anchovies fresh out of the 
bay of Naples, and trout of the Salz Kammergut, and divers 
other fishy dainties rich and rare, — but the exquisite, the re- 
fined white-fish, exceeds them all. It is really the most lux- 
urious delicacy that swims the waters. It is said that people 
never tire of them. Mr. MacMurray (a church of England 
Missionary on the Canada side of the Sault) tells me that he 
has eaten them every day of his life for seven years, and that 
his relish for them is undiminished. The enormous quanti- 
ties caught here, and in the bays and creeks round Lake Sup- 
erior, remind me of herrings in the lochs of Scotland. Be- 
sides subsisting the inhabitants, whites and Indians, during 
^reat part of the year, vast quantities are cured and barrelled 
every fall, and sent down to the eastern states. Not leas 
than eight thousand barrels were shipped last year." 

C, page 26.— Travelers' Approach to Old Mackinaw. 

Parkman in his "Conspiracy of Pontiac" thus describes 
a traveller approaching the little fort settlement in 1763, com- 
ing up on Lake Huron. 

"Passing on his right the extensive Island of Bois-Blanc, 



APPENDIX. 171 

te sees, nearly in front, the beautiful Mackinaw, rising, with 
its white cliffs and green foliage, from the broad breast of the 
waters. He does not steer towards it, for at that day the In- 
dians were its only tenants, but keeps along the main shore 
to the left, while his voyagetirs raise their s®ng and chorus. 
Doubling a point, he sees before him the red flag of Eng- 
land swelling lazily in the wind, and the palisades and wooden 
bastions of Fort Michilimackinac standing close upon the 
margin of the lake. On the beach, canoes are drawn up, 
and Canadians and Indians are idly lounging." 

D» page 34'— Water Course of Early Days. 

Captain Marshall of the Light House service in the 
Straits, who has lived on the island since childhood, tells me 
this "run of water" may have been the stream (now a mere 
rivulet) in the field between the Grand Hotel and the Fort. 
That when he was a young boy this stream was quite large 
and by the construction of a dam might have furnished a 
considerable head of water. In days still earlier and before 
the village settlement was effected it may haye been much 
larger. 

E, page 62.— Capture of the Fort. 

Letter written to his father by John Askin of the Brit- 
ish army, who participated in the successful invasion of the 
Island in the war of 1812. The original of this letter is in 
the possession of Mr. C. M. Burton of Detroit, by whose 
favor this copy is furnished. It was written at the island, 
and but two days after the capture. 

Michilimackinac, July 19, 1812. 
My Dear Father:— 

Your favor of the 21st ult. reached me the 16th, just 
about one hour before I left St. Joseph with my detachment 
of Indians. We left St. Joseph's on the 16th at 10 o'clock 
a, m., with a fleet of 50 canoes, 10 warriors in each, 12 barges 
with 200 Canadians, two iron six-pounders and 40 men of the 
10th R. Y. Battallion, scaling ladders, ammunition, etc., etc. 



172 EARLY MACKINAC. 

The elements were propitious to our undertaking. Having 
command of the left wing I landed an hour before day-break 
in the rear of the Island and formed. The center, composed 
of the Canadians and veterans, landed and formed, so did the 
right wing. Our ordinance was landed and dragged with 
velocity through woods, swamps, hills, and at 10 o'clock one 
six-pounder was erected and placed on a rising ground 
which had the entire command of the Fort.* The right wing 
composedof 103 Sioux, Folles Avoinest and Waynebagos, com- 
manded by Mr. Dixon, was formed in order. Mine was com- 
posed of Ottawas and Chippewas and about 50 men more 
who joined me at my taking position, as ordered by our worthy 
Capt. Roberts. The Indians were like devils to storm the 
place. They even advanced, in spite of all my exertion and 
that of six or seven interpreters and volunteers near the Fort 
pickets, and would have killed Capt. Hanks (we are told) had 
they not have been prevented, for he was within gun shot. 
At 10 o'clock a flag of truce was sent for the besieged to 
capitulate which they did at 11 o'clock. The fort was put 
in possession. Previous to the capitulation, Mr. Abbot, 
Howard, Stone, Jones, and all the citizens of the U. S. gov- 
ernment gave themselves up prisoners of war. Two vessels 
in port were likewise given up. The commanding officer has 
since the capitulation, given up all private property— the 
officers and men to be sent down on parole until exchanged. 
The Fort is a beautiful place, and what does honor to those 
who had the command is that not a single person has been 
injured, not a single fowl killed belonging to any person what- 
ever. A happy thing for the Americans that they did not 
fire a shot, for had they fired and wounded any person not a 
soul would have been saved from the Hatchet. I assure you 
I never saw so determined a set of people. They would not 
have spared man, woman, or child. Johnny was my right 



*The elevation now known as Fort Holmes. 

tThe writer of this letter uses a local French 'name designating the 
Menomonee tribe of Indians. 



APPENDIX. 1 73 

hand man and deserves credit for his exertions in preventing 
the Indians from committing improper acts. 

I expect every moment to receive orders to embark with 
the force under my command for your relief. * * * \ 
trust in G-od that the force about Amherstburgh, etc., may 
be as successful as we have been. * * * 

F, page 71. — British Loss of Fur Trade. 

When Lord Shelburne was upbraided in the English Par- 
liament for yielding the Northwest to the United States, the 
complaint was that he had clothed the Americans "in the 
warm covering of our fur-trade." 

G, page 81. — Drummond Island in 1830. 

There is a pathos and something of mystery connected 
with the history of Drummond Island. For ten or twelve 
years it had been the abode of a fixed population. Besides 
its military fortifications, there were roadways, substantially 
built dwellings one and two stories in height, and the many 
marks of a well ordered community. Upon its surrender and 
abandonment by the British in 1828, the island with its many 
evidences of man's handiwork seemed to to have suddenly 
relapsed into the wildness and silence of the great wilder- 
ness. I have found a description of the scene it presented, 
over seventy years ago, in an old book entitled "Tour of 
the American Lakes and among the Indians of the North- 
west Territory, in 1830," by C. Colton. He is travelling 
from Detroit up Lake Huron, bound for the Sault: 

''Next, the little Manitou— and then the Drummond Isle 
— on the last of which and near the straits, as we approached 
was distinctly brought under our eye, through a beautiful 
harbor, and within one mile of our course, a fort and little 
village, erected and formerly belonging to the British, appar- 
ently well built;— but now without a solitary human being, 
since, by the recent demarcation of the bounding line, the 
island has fallen within the jurisdiction of the United States. 
A deserted village, in this uninhabited region, was a melan- 



174 EARLY MACKINAC. 

choly spectacle — and resting, as it does in such a beautiful 
spot! It really looked covetable — like a little paradise, peep- 
ing out upon the sea, by the point of land which defends the 
harbour, skirted by a lovely forest-scene, and spreading its fair 
bosom to the heavens, seems to invite those* who may be 
tired of the world, to its enchanting retreat. I cannot ima- 
gine, how it should be left unoccupied, and I can hardly yet 
persuade myself that such is the fact. I strained my eyes 
through the glass, as we passed, to see the busy population, 
but no human form appeared. And thus I thought it must 
be a fairy creation, in kindness laid before our eye, to relieve 
us for a moment from the monotony of these desolate abodes; 
for we had seen nothing like the feature of an inhabited 
world, since we left Fort G-ratiot, except a solitary sail, far 
off on the bosom of the lake; — but the melancholy effect up- 
on my own feelings, when I was obliged to believe, that no 
man, or woman, or child was there — none of human kind to 
enjoy the apparent desirableness of the place — will not al- 
low me to appreciate the favour intended." \ ol. 1 pages 67, 
68. 

We may add this traveler's note about St. Joseph's Isi- 
land, which has already been mentioned in connection with 
the capture of Mackinac by the British in 1812. It lies a 
little further on to the north, in the journey up the St. Mary's 
river: 

"We also passed the ruins of another fort on the island 
of St. Joseph, a valuable and beautiful territory twenty 
miles by ten, lifting up a mountain in its centre, and said to 
embosom a mine of silver known only to an Indian, whose 
guardian spirit will not permit either himself, or others, to 
reap the advantage of the disclosure." 

H, page 88.— Passing of the Beaver. 

The beaver, like the buffalo, is now almost extinct in the 
United States. Formerly these fur-bearing animals were so 
abundant that during the early part of the last century beaver 
skins were shipped from America to Europe at the rate of 



APPENDIX. 175 

200,000 per year. To-day there are but few localities where 
it is found wild within our borders. A recent correspondent 
in the Chicago Inter-Ocean has made_the following reflection 
on the subject: 

"Like the buffalo, the beaver was once most intimately 
associated with the Hfe and development of this country. 
Its thrifty habits^and remarkable home life; its wonderful 
dams, canals, locks, houses and other engineering works» 
showing an intelligence and Bkill almost human, made it 
prominent in the minds of the pioneers of the land and an ob- 
ject of superstition to the Indians. The names of Beaver 
Falls, Beaver River, Beaver Dam, Beaver Lake, Beaver 
Islands, etc., show how strong was the influence exerted by 
the beaver on the pioneers of the Northern States." 



I, page io6.— The Voyageurs. 

Washington Irving in his "Astoria" thus describes the 
voyageurs as they were known in the early days of last cen- 
tury: 

"They form a kind of confraternity in the Canadas, like 
the arrieros or carriers of Spain. * * Their language is a 
French /a/fcw embroidered with English and Italian words and 
phrases. They are generally of French descent, and inherit 
much of the gaiety and lightness of heart of their ancestors. 
* * No men are more submissive to their leaders and em- 
ployers, more capable of enduring hardships, or more good- 
humoured under privations. Never are they so happy as 
when on long and rough expeditions towing up rivers or 
coasting lakes. They are dexterous boatmen, vigorous and 
adroit with the oar or paddle, and will row from morning till 
night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old 
French song, with some regular burthen in which they all 
join, keeping time with their oars. If at any time they flag 
in spirits or relax in exertion, it is but necessary to strike up 
a song of this kind to put them all in fresh spirits and act- 
ivity." 



176 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Mrs. Jameson in the account of her canoe journey 
through the Georgian Bay mentions a night of -violent rain 
and wind which her party encountered. While she in her tent 
was comfortable through the whole storm, the voyageursy she 
says, "who apparently need nothing but their own good spir- 
its to feed and clothe them, lighted a fire, turned the canoes 
upside down, and, sheltered under them, were heard singing 
and laughing during great part of this tempestuous night." 



EARLY MACKINAC. 

By The Rev. Meade C. Williams, D. D. 

4th Edition. 33 Illustrations. 

A delightful bit of romantic history.— [N Y. Independent. 

As instructive as a history, and as entertaining as a romance.— [Terre 
Haute Gazette. 

A most readable and interesting study of an exceedingly attractive 
subject. — I Michigan Presbyterian. 

Its pages are replete with historical data, forgotten stories and mat- 
ters of absorbing interest connected with the Straits region and the Island 
of Mackinac in particular. It contains much that no island history that 
we have seea has any mention of. — I St. Ignace (Mich.) Republican. 

There is hardly another place in this country that is the equal of 
Mackinac in beauty and charm, combined with the interest of history and 
tradition. We congratulate Dr. Williams on this little volume. It is a 
model of restraint, condensation and accuracy. Illustrations and charts 
add to the value of the book. — [Indianapolis Evening News. 

May be regarded as historically exact in every detail. The changes 
which have taken place in two centuries are chronologically followed, and 
the reader who wishes a succinct, exact, and also pleasantly written ac- 
count of the white man's occupation of the Island, combined with de- 
scriptions of the picturesque features and legends attached to them should 
study this brochure.— [Detroit Free Press. 

The changes that have taken place on that historic island are followed 
chronologically through two centuries down to the present time. The 
author, Rev. Dr. Meade C. Williams, has made his summer home on the 
island for sixteen years, and is in every way qualified to write authentic- 
ally and entertainingly on the picturesque features and legends of famous 
old Michilimachinac. The littte book is the product of much research 
and may be accepted as absolutely reliable. It is recommended to those 
who intend visiting Mackinac or who wish a souvenir of the island —[Chi- 
cago Record-Herald. 

One of the most attractive little books which has passed under our 
notice recently bears the title of Early Mackinac, and is a sketch, histori- 
cal and descriptive, of Mackinac Island. Its author, the Rev. Meade C. 
Williams, D. D., has made his summer home on the island for more than 
a dozen years, and has not only fallen under the charm of the phce, but 
has made an exhaustive study of the early history. Dr. Williams writes 
with the keenest appreciation of his summer home. His picture is not 
overdrawn, for there is no more beautiful spot the country over than 
Mackinac. His little book will be a valuable souvenir to those who have 
visited it, and its perusal an excellent preparation to those who have that 
pleasure yet in store. — [N. Y. Observer. 

There are few, if any, more interesting spots in the West, whether 
regarded from a historical or picturesque point of view, than the little 
island of Mackinac. Visitors often fail to get the most out of their sojourn 
at the island because they know nothing of the events which have trans- 
pired upon its wooded heights and its shelving beaches. Dr. Williams, 
who has been a constant visitor to Mackinac, in this little volume has ad- 
ded to the pleasure of every visitor who cares to know of the romantic 
annals of the island under its three flags. He has collected a large 
amount of material from many sources concerning the early history of 
the place, its Indian legends, its connection with the fur trade of the once 
unknown Northwest, the missionary efforts in behalf of the Indians 
which centered there, and lastly of the natural beauties of the place.— 
[The Standard (Chicago). 



JUN 22 1903 



